Léon Pointu

Léon Pointu’s ceramics belong to the Carriès school, which settled in Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye following Jean Carriès, a center of stoneware production since the Middle Ages.

Its founder, Jean Carriès (1855-1894), chose it for the quality of its clays and its pottery artisans from whom he learned the craft of stoneware. A talented sculptor and renowned portraitist, who triumphed in the Paris of the 1870s-80s, he decided to break with sculpture, at the height of his art, in 1878 after visiting the Universal Exposition of Paris and attending a tea ceremony. Enchanted by the beauty, purity, and spiritual depth of Japanese stoneware utensils, he decided to devote his life to stoneware, this ‘male of porcelain.’ The presentation of Japanese collections, such as Emile Guimet’s, at the Universal Exposition of Paris in 1878 greatly contributed to the dissemination of Japanese aesthetics in French art, particularly in decorative arts such as ceramics. Codified in the 16th century by Sen no Rikyu, the tea ceremony embodies the essence of a ritualized Japanese aesthetic in search of perfection, which fascinated late 19th-century artists with its relationship to nature and its acceptance of nature’s intervention in artistic creation. Carriès added symbolist references to nature in the creation of a fantastic stoneware bestiary, while Jean Pointu focused more on the evocative power of layered matte glazes, as seen in his creation of a remarkably smooth hare fur glaze. The use of gold, drips, and matte glazes were highly significant in creating an Art Nouveau and Art Deco aesthetic within decorative arts. However, Japan’s influence was also decisive in the conception of an artist-craftsman and a total art as it emerged at the turn of the century.