Swedish Ceramics & Nihilism

Berndt Friberg, Carl-Harry Stalhane, Trillers, and Yngue Blixt use unique forms to produce their best haresfur glaze ceramics. The Swedish usage of Japanese and Chinese glazes to create haresfur glazes is meant to evoke the pathos of nihilism, but the pathos is only a means to the end of demonstrating the logos of nihilism. The genius of Swedish haresfur glaze is that it uses pathos to achieve logos, which undermines the superstitions of Modernity by reductio ab absurdum. The post-World War Swedish ceramicists-artists are more philosophical than Patrick Nordstrom, and arguable the most radical postmodern ceramicists-artists, because they evoke the logos of nihilism to undermine the scientific belief of external world by refusing to accept the external world is real.           

Friberg throws by hand simple forms and has several versions of the haresfur glaze relative to color (blue, yellow, and brown). So what Robin Hecht calls Friberg’s “pale blue striated glaze, cholate striated glaze, and tobacco glaze” (Hecht, 136) are classified as haresfur glazes. The unique aesthetic value of Friberg’s work is how he balances his heighten sense of powerlessness with seeking forms and glazes, which provide him the capacity to elevate himself to a false sense of power through an aesthetic nihilism, which has its roots in the Bhagavad Gita, as well as Nietzsche. Friberg’s glazes challenge the very concept of thing-ness, because it contains no-thingness or representations.

World hood, on the other hand, consists of things and movements or sequences of representations in time and space.  “The most extreme form of nihilism would be the view that every belief… is necessarily false, because there simply is no true world” (Nietzsche, WP, 15). Friberg is Nietzsche’s “extreme nihilist," who denies the reality of the world on the grounds that empirical world is a modern superstition. What is the aesthetic value of representations, when "eveything” is composed of atoms and mostly made up of nothing. "What does the world mean? That mountain there! That cloud here! What is real in that ? Subtract the phantasm and every human contribution from it, my sober friends! If you can!... There is no reality forus – not for you or your sober friends (Nietzsche, GS, 57).    

By denying the modern superstition of empirical world, the discoveries of Science (such as the atomic bomb) become comical, because they are grounded upon the superstition of the external world. This comical effect is a relief to the anxious mind, such as Friberg, who is highly sensitive of consequences of the atomic age.  Accordingly, representations mean nothing as the aesthetic value of Dasein shifts to the atomic age. Only uniformed nothingness, which negates representation via the haresfur glaze, has aesthetic value. “ As day dawns everything manifest emerges from the unmanifest; as night falls it merges back into that same designated unmanifest” (Bhagavad Gita, 8: 18). Since everything is nothing more than its potential nothingness, the real sense of anything must be nothing, because its thingness is transient or an illusion. So every representation becomes manifest will only return to the “unmanifest.” Everything thing you perceive can suddenly not be by merely pushing a button on a computer. Haresfur glaze imposes gently and simply the scientific fact, that all thingness in world can be transformed into nothingness. This reality is no longer a speculation of the Bhagavad Gita, but a scientific reality. Friberg’s consciousness and expression of this fact is a great aesthetic achievement.     

Friberg’s turquoise and Aniara glazes also show the atomic Dasein by having different colors blend with one another without regard to structure, which is a metaphysical prerequisite for thing-ness. “Understand that this is the source of all living beings; I am the origin and dissolution of this whole universe” (Bhagavad Gita, 7: 6). Since all thing-ness is nothing more than potential dissolution, then dissolution of a structure is the real state, while formation of structure is an illusion. Turquoise and Aniara glazes illustrate this metaphysical point of the Bhagavad Gita by having colors move from place to place without forming a definite form, but mixing with the other colors. Friberg’s work is the complete negation of other postmodern ceramics, because of his total disregard with thing-ness in his glazes upon unique vessels, and his insistence upon beauty through nothingness underwritten by his acute intentionality of the atomic Dasein.

Stalhane's usage of the haresfur glaze is as complicated as Friberg and shares much of the latter's intentionality of the atomic age. Since Stalhane uses haresfur glaze in a similar manner as Friberg, it is safe to assume that former shared the latter’s Hindu and Nietzschean nihilism. Since Friberg and Stalhane suffer from extreme powerlessness over the possible destruction of the world, nihilism is a source of empowerment: “Nihilism an ideal of the highest degree of powerfulness of the spirit, the over richest life—partly destructive, partly ironic” (Nietzsche, WP, 15). Since nothing is real, you lose attachment to the world. Once you accept Friberg’s extreme nihilism which denies the world, attachment to something that is unreal and is non sense. Understood in this way, believing in the world is as ridiculous as believing in the Easter Bunny, or God, or Father Time. The world is a mere superstition due to the discovery of the atomic bomb.                             

Friberg and Stalhane’s shared nihilism is timeless and space less. The same Nihilism emerges 1000 bc in India (the Bhagavad Gita), as it does in Germany in 1880s, and as it does in Post Second World War Sweden. In the case of nihilism, Hans Gadamer (a German philosopher) is correct that a tradition, such as nihilism, can tie humans to the distinct past and remote places by the sense of “belonging” to the same state of being (or Dasein). What are the conditions which make nihilism a timeless and space less philosophy. “When one moves toward a goal it seems impossible that goal-lessness as such is the principle of faith (Nietzsche, WP 25). Civilizations organize themselves around goals, which are un-achievable, and collapse upon themselves. World hoods are destroyed. Modernity, for example, organizes its self around goals, such as progress, industry, enlightenment; but the product of modern world collapses upon itself partially in the First World War, but completely in the Second World War due to the invention of the Atomic bomb, which can literally destroy the world, not our perception of world.                                                                                                 

The best of Stalhane’s work tries to transcend the haresfur glaze by combing different glazes into complex but coherent sequence of patterns, which involve different glazes that appears to be randomly applied. This is what makes Stalhane’s work truly unique, and also makes him not the “extreme nihilist” Friberg. Under more careful scrutiny, the pattern is not random on the vessel, but is intended to create a coherent whole, which each of its alleged random parts play essential role in its coherence. Although Stalhane uses haresfur glaze on many of his vessels -- not as regularly on his unique pieces, he is not as convinced as Friberg that the haresfur glazes or ochers are the secret to comprehend the atomic Dasein. Stalhane wants to push Nietzsche’s insight that nihilism is empowering through his work. “And what [perfect nihilist] does not do for himself, he also does not do for the whole past of mankind: he lets it drop” (Nietzsche, WP, 21). Stalhane, who belongs to the timeless tradition of nihilism, wants to drop the past techniques of producing hand thrown pottery and glazing, because they are pointless relative to the forceful fact that man can destroy everything through atomic weapons. Only by dropping the past tradition, will he find empowerment to overcome his state in the Atomic Dasein.   

Stalhane is playing a different trick of perspective than Friberg to produce the effect of dropping history, as the ultimate act of the perfect nihilist. He acts like he is not attached to the concept of the “whole” by appearing to use different colors randomly, but actually creates the “whole” from the parts. The secret to his art is not to act intentionally. “Therefore, without attachment, always do whatever action has to be done; for it is through acting without attachment that a man attains the highest” (BG. 3:19). By not acting “intentionally” or with “attachment,” Stalhane retains something (i.e., the whole), but drops all appearance of intending to preserve the whole.                                

When Stalhane tries to manipulate the particular as a random glaze effect and coordinate all the particulars into a coherent whole on the vessel, he is achieving the Nietzschean empowerment of nihilism, because he is dropping the past tradition and creates a new perspective. Just as random parts moving at rapid speeds compose the atom, so Stalhane uses what appears to be random glaze effects in a certain sequence to create a coherent whole. Accordingly, his work does truly reflect the atomic Dasein. Like Friberg, he is interested in the negation of “thing-ness” with haresfur glazes and the other experimental glazes; but he also wants to create the perception of coherence out of randomness on his vessel, just as the random movements of atoms create the appearance of “thing-ness” in our perception of the world. Stalhane is a master of what Merleau-Ponty calls the prejudice of perception. On Merleau-Ponty view, perception has a natural tendency to perceive what it wants perceive from phenomena due to the mind’s prejudices. Accordingly, whether or not Stalhane is a student of Merleau-Ponty, he does implicitly understand the French phenomenologist’s concept of perceptual prejudice in his unique pieces, because we perceive out of randomness regular patterns in Stalhane’s work due to our perceptual prejudices. 

In Scandinavian Art Pottery, Robin Hecht argues that “Erich and Ingrid Triller made what is considered the finest stoneware in Scandinavia and were completely to the concept of aesthetic purity” (Hecht, 161). Hecht’s remarks about Tobo in contrast to other Scandinavian art pottery are careless and stupid; but her remark about” aesthetic purity” is comical, since she is completely ignorant about the Hindu and Nietzschean nihilism of Swedish art pottery, or the subtle difference between Friberg and Stalhane’s nihilism. Hecht could object by arguing that I am imposing or adding additional ideas, such as historical events and texts, to the interpretation of Swedish art pottery. She is absolutely correct. An interpretation (subtilitas explicandi) always involves “adding those ideas that are necessary for a perfect understanding” (Gadamer, 183). Her objection is a tautology: any interpretation of something always involves adding additional ideas to the subject of interpretation; additional ideas, such as the Atomic Age and nihilism, are added to the interpretation of Friberg, Stalhane, Trillers of Tobo, and Blixt; ergo, I am interpreting Swedish art pottery.                 

Comparing Tobo’s work in terms of form to Friberg and Stalhane, you can see the influence of Richard Bampi on Tobo. Enrich Triller brings Bampi’s Bauhaus tradition and form to Tobo’s pottery. Tobo is far more heavily influenced in how Enrich and Ingrid throw their pottery by Bauhaus than Friberg and Stalhane. Bauhaus is a German tradition which attempt to integrate the whole from the various arts and crafts, which dates from 1906 to 1933. Friberg and Stalhane’s forms (especially Friberg) are more heavily influenced by Japanese forms. So if you prefer Bauhaus over Japanese forms, you will probably prefer Tobo over Friberg. Personally, Tobo seems backward compared to Friberg and Stalhane in terms of hand thrown forms, because the latter show Swedish intentionality of the Atomic, while the latter represents an earlier aesthetic, Bauhaus.

The glazes of Tobo are not as boring as their Bauhaus forms. They abstain from representational imagery as much as Friberg and Stalhane, but arguable the glazes of Tobo are more similar to Friberg’s haresfur glaze as a base glaze standard than to Stalhane more complex glazes, which attempt to use parts to create a whole. Tobo’s glazes, however, are richer in depth than Friberg’s haresfur glaze. Tobo’s tobacco, denim blue, sable, dark green, sienna, sage green, and rabbit fur are far more ambivalent than Friberg’s glazes, because the former’s glazes are not simple matte, but have opaque and translucent qualities. Friberg’s haresfur glaze leaves us with the feeling that “when we have sought a meaning in all events that is not there, the seeker eventually becomes discouraged. Nihilism, then, is recognition of the long waste of strength, the agony of the in the vain” (Nietzsche, WP, 12). Friberg’s haresfur is meant to demonstrate that the strength to create a representational image is a “long waste” or an “agony of the vain.” Tobo’s glazes share Friberg’s exhaustion.

Creating representational images on pottery is superstitious, because the world is a superstition in the Atomic Dasein. Only glazes that caste off the yoke of the world of representation are utilized on their unique pottery. Tobo’s tobacco, denim blue, sable, dark green, sienna, sage green, and rabbit fur caste of any effort to represent or correspond to anything in the perceptible world. They represent surfaces, which appear space less and timeless, because they are so pure to color that a perceiver does not have the benefit of contrast to establish space and time. These glazes are meant to push perception away from the” world of thoughts,” provide a completely different datum to perception, and free it from the everyday perceptual world. Tobo’s glazes may be more successful in their effort to push away everydayness of Dasein than Friberg.                                      

The glazes of Tobo, on the other hand, are playing a different trick by using opaque and translucent qualities to show a duality in life, and that depth comes from duality. This is the uniqueness of Tobo’s glazes. Tobo’s glazes create the effect that the glaze is created for the form of the pottery, but is still outside of form. Their glazes and their depth play the old inside outside Hindu trick of perspective. “The entire universe is displayed on me in my unmanifest form; all creatures exist in me, but I do not exist in them” (BG 9:4). In other words, all the glazes of Tobo can always go on any piece of pottery, and all those pieces depend upon those glazes, but the glazes exist outside of pottery. Or, we are never limited by the form to the application of the glaze, because form is the “inside,” while the glaze is the “outside.” Or, the glaze is plurality (opaque and translucent), while the form is determinate. Tobo opens up clearly and distinctly an infinite regress with regard to the application of glaze to form. This meant to demonstrate the absurdity of an order which is preserved by utter disorder.                                                                                                                          

Yngue Blixt of Hoganas (Swedish firm which employed Friberg initially) develops a petroleum based glaze on his unique stoneware, which is very similar in some respects to the French crystalline glaze. Instead of using quartz (as the French), Blixt uses oil in his glaze to create free forms on his vessel, which really do not fuse together as the French crystalline glaze. Blixt’s petroleum glaze evokes an atomistic feel for the vessel, because you perceive all these unique spots of oil all over the vessel, which has them, appear to be in movement. Britt says “knowing how oil spot glaze effects are created allows you to achieve interesting effects in another way. Applying glazes over an oil spot for some colorful effects” (Britt, 78). You can imagine that the vessel is an empty set that contains little particles of movement, which is not very different from the structure of an atom. Or, “comprehensively renouncing desires, which are born out of intention to produce a particular result, totally restraining the collection of the sense by the mind alone” (BG. 6:24). In other words, Blixt’s petroleum glaze has no intentionality relative to the desired effect of how the oil will react to the heat of the kiln. He simply wants to see how it natural reacts without regard to its ugliness or beauty. The pottery is meant to be completely “accidental,” just as the formation of the atom.  “Accidental” may be the best word, because accident assumes purpose. Blixt’s petroleum glaze is unique in that the glaze has no purpose, because the world has no purpose. Blixt believes that “once you know that there are no purposes, you know that there is no accident” (Nietzsche, GS, 109). Since the world is random combinations of atoms, the randomness negates both purpose and accident. So any glaze regardless of aesthetic taste shows this philosophical reality is a necessary expression Atomic Dasein.                                                                                                                            

Blixt’s glaze uses the most important commodity of post modernity, oil, to create his random atomistic effect. Accordingly, the petroleum glaze is not relying, like Friberg, upon Hindu nihilism to undermine the concept of thingness, nor is he using Merleau-Ponty’s concept of perceptual of prejudice, as Stalhane. Rather, Blixt uses the main commodity of atomic Dasein (i.e., oil) to create an unintentional atomistic glaze, which his denial of purpose and accident. He uses his own world hood, oil, to create a random pattern on a vessel and express his world hood. The symmetry is perfect and unique. Perhaps, the petroleum glaze may be the most important and original Swedish post Second World War glaze to describe the atomic Dasein. Unlike Friberg and Stalhane, Blixt’s work, however, is largely unrecognized outside of Sweden.