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Ceramics and ceramic art in the art world means artwork made out of clay bodies and fired into the hardened ceramic form. Some ceramic pieces are classified as fine art, while many others can be classified as one of the decorative, industrial or applied arts (the application of design and aesthetics to objects of function and everyday use). The identification of a specific pottery piece as a "work of art" is not always clear. Ceramic art usually, but not always, was intended by the maker as art. It may have a signature, designer name or brand name stamp on the bottom. Ceramic art can be either manufactured by individuals or in a factory that employs artists to design, produce or decorate the ware.
Historically, ceramic articles were prepared by shaping the clay body, a clay rich mixture of various minerals, into the desired shapes before being subjected to high temperatures in a kiln. However ceramics now refers to a very diverse group of materials which, while all are fired to high temperature, may not have been shaped from material containing any clay. The origin of the word is the ancient Greek keramikos, from Keramos, meaning "potter's clay."
In modern art theory, the fine art pot or expressive pot has been used as a name of pottery that aspires to the conditions of fine art, generally by prioritizing conceptual and aesthetic qualities over functionality or usefulness. Fine art pot has been used as a term opposite of the phrase ethical pot (meaning utilitarian pottery) - at least by ceramic art theorists defining art styles and their merits since the 1940s.
Fine art pot styles were led and taught by William Staite Murray and other post-war potters such as Lucie Rie and Hans Coper. The alternative Arts and Crafts style of ethical pot (simple and utilitiarian studio pottery) was explored by potter Bernard Leach and his followers.
The modern art movement in pottery is experimental in nature. Many styles originated from the Arts and Crafts movement when studio potters were looking to find a place and definition for the crafts in the age of industrialisation and mechanised-production, and from the desire to re-establish ceramics as a fine art medium.
Modern ceramic artists and potters often engage in what has become know as the "Art versus Craft debate", in which the merits of each pottery approach are perpetually reiterated without resolution.
