Try this–for making a bird’s nest: put some moss, add pebbles, and a figurine in the broken pot for an eye-catching element in the garden.
The Renaissance Artist Who Cast Live Snakes, Frogs, and Lizards to Make His Ceramics
The 16th-century Frenchman Bernard Palissy was a true Renaissance polymath whose myriad areas of expertise ranged from painting and glassmaking to geology and natural history. He conducted experiments and wrote treatises that enriched both paleontology and ceramics.
Today, Palissy’s legacy thrives through a series of curious, rustic ceramic dishes. These glossy, sculptural vessels and platters are glazed in vibrant jewel-tones and crawling with various animal species—forms that Palissy made by taking casts of living, breathing creatures. Enchanting and eccentric, they’re held in the collections of major institutions like the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London and the Getty in Los Angeles.
Long before Palissy began experimenting with ceramics, he received early lessons in drawing and glass-painting. He was born into humble beginnings, to a peasant family in southwestern France around 1510. In his late teens, he left home and took his artistic talents on the road, traveling across Europe. He eventually settled and started a family in Saintes, France, a city with a rich history of ceramics production, where he set up a workshop of his own.
Bernard Palissy, 1565-85. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
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Palissy’s passion for the medium was incited by a white ceramic cup he saw around 1540. Taken by the refined, pure-white vessel—which is believed to have been Italian porcelain—he was inspired to launch what would be a 16-years-long venture to develop his own elegant objects. Instead of emulating the porcelain, though, Palissy developed a pale-colored earthenware clay, and forged a new, unique style. His dishes were adorned with brilliant, gleaming glazes and realized through an unprecedented use of a life-casting method.
In Renaissance Europe, life-casting was already widely used among 16th-century metalworkers, who were creating decorative objects in gold and bronze adorned with figurines of natural species—in line with the era’s enthusiasm for the natural world, and the rise of mannerism. Palissy adapted the technique to his purposes, creating plaster casts to be used with clay; he’s considered the first to use the technique for ceramics.
Using life-casting, Palissy created molds of small animals and plants which he would use to adorn his plates, basins, and ewers. “As the potter cast teeming pond scenes into clay, his procedure alluded to his conception of the earth’s own generation of mineral, vegetable, and animal objects,” writes Dr. Hanna Rose Shell in a 2004 article on the artist. “Meanwhile, his products existed as sculptural renditions of the natural world.”
Bernard Palissy, 1570-90. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
A choice basin in the permanent collection of the V&A, for example, features a squiggling snake at its center, encircled by slithering fish, a sprightly frog, and a dainty crayfish, all atop a cobalt blue watery base, and accented with ferns and other emerald-green vegetation. Like much of Palissy’s work, this dioramic vision of pond life is more a testament to nature than a utilitarian vessel meant to carry food.
To create his works, Shell explains, Palissy would begin by creating casts of rocks, which would serve as the foundations for the sculptural scenes. Then came the life-casting, “the goal of which was the artificial petrification of aquatic and amphibian creatures,” Shell writes, “that is, their literal transformation into stone.” This started by collecting real plant, animal, and mineral specimens, sourced from ponds, lakes, and caves. Already well-versed in the life sciences at this point in his life, Palissy furthered his understanding and theories of the natural world during this expeditions. His fascination with pond ecosystems is in keeping with a pronounced interest in these environments among Renaissance-era intellectuals.
Captured subjects, like frogs and lizards, were kept alive, and their bodies preserved—intact and unblemished. “A lost lizard leg or punctured snake head would render the specimen useless,” Shell writes. Palissy caught snakes by hand, with heavy rags; fish and aquatic creatures with nets; and frogs and lizards with knotted string. The collecting process was not only physically challenging but also dangerous—some of Palissy’s subjects were venomous.
Bernard Palissy, Oval Plate, mid-16th century.
Though he documented much of his life and work in writing, Palissy kept much of the specifics of his life-casting process secret. Based on the methods of fellow French artisans who also employed this technique, it’s likely that he kept a menagerie of specimens in jars in his workshop. Once it was time to cast a subject, it was customary to dip the creature in vinegar or urine, coat it in a greasy substance, then position it on a bed of plaster, arranged in a striking, lively pose. The final step would have been covering—as in, suffocating—the specimen with additional plaster.
After the plaster was set and dried (and the deceased animal’s body removed), the mold appeared remarkably similar to a fossil, Shell notes. Palissy would press clay into these molds, then carefully attach the resulting figures to his vessels, using needles and palette knives. The finished compositions were then fired and painted with custom glazes Palissy invented—translucent, lead-based substances infused with metallic oxides. They were then fired one final time.
Each work is a sort of microcosm of the natural world, which bears evidence of the barbaric process that brought it to fruition. “Palissy’s ceramic productions compressed both nature and time into clay,” Shell writes. “He brought plates to life by killing nature, burning wood, and cooking earths.”
From the time he perfected his process until his death in 1590, Palissy’s methods, and his compositions, changed very little (many a platter can be found with a squirming snake at its center). Palissy developed a following, his ceramics becoming known as “Rustic Ware” or “Palissy Ware.” Fellow artists began copying his style, and he attracted serious patrons, like Constable Anne de Montmorency in Saintes, who would later introduce him to the queen mother of France, Catherine de Médici.
18 Incredible Broken Pot Ideas For Garden
Do you have broken containers? Instead of throwing them, recycle! You’ve no idea that you can create amazing stuff for your garden from them easily. We’ve some cool Broken Pot Ideas for you to check out!
Check out some incredible coffee mug ideas for the garden here
Incredible Broken Pot Ideas
1. Make a Spilled Flower Pot
Making a spilled flower pot is one of the best ideas to make with a pot that is half broken from the other side. You can create an astonishing waterfall-like appearance from flowers.
Look at some incredible spilled flower pot ideas here
2. Grow Succulents
Succulents are ultimate plants, super easy and you can grow them anywhere. Growing succulents in a broken pot is a clever idea that looks unique.
3. Use them For Mulching
Mulching with the broken clay pot pieces is an effective idea to save soil moisture, as well as your time. To do it, break the pot into more small pieces and arrange them on the surface of the soil.
4. Make a Fairy Garden
If you have a large planter that is broken from the side, you can create a broken pot fairy garden. A fairy garden is easy and fun to make, plus it beautifies a garden.
Find out 70 miniature fairy garden ideas here
5. Use them as Plant Labels
Bat the pot into desired pieces. Take the potsherds and write the name of plants with a permanent marker on them. You can also decorate it with colors, when you’re done bury it half into the soil.
6. Control Invasive Plants
If your pot is partially broken or can be arranged together, grow invasive plants in it. Bury it half in the soil and plant an invasive plant such as mint in that. This trick will stop that from spreading.
7. Build a Frog House
To do this, simply place it upside down near a moist spot in your garden. Use your creativity, paint it with beautiful colors, label it, and you’re done.
8. Use them to Drain Water
Before adding soil into the container, line the bottom with some terracotta pieces from a broken pot. This trick will help excess water to drain away from the roots.
9. Make a Bird Nest
Try this–for making a bird’s nest: put some moss, add pebbles, and a figurine in the broken pot for an eye-catching element in the garden.
10. Protect a Seedling
You can protect the tender seedlings from pets or animals by using a broken pot ‘collar’. This will also stop the slugs from reaching it.
Learn some helpful seedling tricks here
11. Repair It!
A broken pot can be fixed. For this, clean and dry the cracked area, and apply silicone cake or cement adhesive. Collect the broken pieces together, and set them in place with a tape or string. Allow it to dry overnight.
12. Build a Mini Alpine Garden from Broken Pot
Follow this idea and give a makeover to a broken pot, making a small alpine garden.
13. Layered Plants in a Broken Pot
Layer up the plants in a broken container, and give it a beautiful look with different, colorful succulents.
14. Shade Seedlings
Shade the small seedling by putting a broken pot above it. This idea will protect the young plant from harsh sunlight and make it look cool.
15. Stack Them Up
Reuse large broken pots by stacking one piece on top of other, filling potting mix, and tucking in the plant.
16. Make a Simple Succulent Arrangement
Take inspiration from this image and grow your favorite succulent in a broken pot.
Check out some beautiful indoor succulent combination ideas here
17. Use it to Grow Flowers
Set a broken pot in a slightly tilted position, fill up the soil, and propagate your favorite groundcovers in it.
18. Let Succulents Flow!
Fill soil in the broken planter, plant succulents, and improve your creative skills at no cost.
MANDARIN MUSEUM
11964 Mandarin Road
Jacksonville, FL 32223
(904) 268-0784
Museum Hours
Weds – Sat, 10 am – 4 pm
FREE Admission
Tours of Historic Buildings
Weds – Sat, 10 am – 4 pm
Suggested donation $7/person
12471 Mandarin Road
Jacksonville, FL 32223
OPEN 1st Saturday each month
10 am – 2 pm
FREE Admission
