My taste is clearly for smooth, simple graceful form. Sometimes I succeed, more or less. For other people, teapots, more than other shapes, seem to invite us to go wildly creative.
We see references to other things in their shape or parts. They encourage art.
The above pictures from a book are in The Ceramic Surface by Matthias Ostermann.
Commercial pots, too, express hints or forms of other things.
That's so friendly and homey, though few of us have ducks on our counters. It's the resting shape of a duck that is also a teapot, and makes the feeling. Thanks Becca.
Look at this spectacular teapot by Ellen Fager.
It's the real fish, and, if you dare, a functional pot for tea. Thanks, Ellen.
Of course people make art in other standard pottery forms -- cups, bowls, plates. But there is something special about teapots. Perhaps because they have so many parts, they ask for manipulation and variation, for changes of proportion, and so refer so effectively to the rest of the world.
