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Ettore Sottsass 埃托雷．索特薩斯
Offerta A Shiva (FF No. 554) 獻給濕婆 (FF No. 554)
1964
The prolific Italian designer Ettore Sottsass created this round ceramic plate, one of one hundred ‘offerings to Shiva’, in 1964. Three years earlier, Sottsass visited India for the first time, contracting a life-threatening case of nephritis that forced him to seek treatment in California. While his condition was still serious, Sottsass produced the Tenebre (‘darkness’) series, ceramics characterised by muted colours and primitive, mysterious shapes. The contrasting, warm Offerta a Shiva followed after Sottsass had fully recovered, an expression of his gratitude to the Hindu deity of destruction and rebirth. The plates do not hold the offerings; they are the offerings themselves.
Around the outer edge of this particular plate, intersecting zones of matte tan are topped by a wide beige stripe. Its centre is a concave disc in reflective blood red, a powerful anchor that evokes an all-seeing eye or an essential inner consciousness. Both transcendent and casual, the plates are an important step in Sottsass’s efforts to push beyond the industry-driven context of formalist and functionalist design in Italy at the time.
Around the outer edge of this particular plate, intersecting zones of matte tan are topped by a wide beige stripe. Its centre is a concave disc in reflective blood red, a powerful anchor that evokes an all-seeing eye or an essential inner consciousness. Both transcendent and casual, the plates are an important step in Sottsass’s efforts to push beyond the industry-driven context of formalist and functionalist design in Italy at the time.
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