The Concept of Beauty in Urhobo Pottery
The concept of beauty derives from the way man has been interpreting the world as it existed since the dawn of human society. In the Western world view, artwork’s beauty depends on the use of elements and principles of design. But, for Africans, the beauty of an artwork is not considered by the form, but the purpose the artwork is made to serve. For this, African artworks were considered by early Western scholars as timid and fetish. This study looks at the perception of beauty that is hidden in the manipulation of the traditional pots produced by Urhobo potters of Delta State in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. The methods applied for the study was by survey and the description of the concept of beauty as it relates to Urhobo traditional pots. The findings were used to arrive at the conclusion which stated that the elements the Western world classified as the factors that connote beauty in an artworks production are not the elements considered for beauty in the pottery production among the Urhobo.
The word pottery is a general name for all fired clay wares. These wares range from valuable decorative wares to household utensils and shrine pots. Pottery is, therefore, directly related to any process that uses silica and heat treatment to make permanent objects of usefulness from earthy materials. The art of pot making in Nigeria received a great stimulus for development as a venture when the Abuja pottery centre
