More Info on Vases, Jars, and Urns
Vase - vessel of
pottery, glass, metal, stone, wood, or synthetic material. The pottery vase was
anciently employed as a container for water (a hydria), wine (an amphora), or
oil (a lekythus), or for mixing and serving wine and water (a crater). It had
one or two handles, sometimes a lip or spout, and frequently a base or foot;
sometimes it was pointed to thrust into the ground or was set into a frame
holder for support. Large covered vases were used
for general storage purposes. The cinerary (cremation) vase, or urn, has been
common throughout historical times, a famous one being the Portland vase. Modern vases are
widely used for flowers. Beautiful in form and embellished with incised
patterns, modeled or painted figures or scenes, and sometimes inscriptions, the
vase became a work of art in early times. Greek painted vases are in form
and color among the most exquisite examples of ancient art. Vases or their
fragments discovered in burial chambers and through excavations in various
countries serve as records of the manners, customs, and history of their
peoples. Buddhist and Christian altar objects include the vase, usually of
silver or gold with chased or modeled designs of exquisite workmanship. Bronze
and brass are much employed for vases in Asia, as
well as porcelain, carved jade, and crystal in China
and enamelware in the Satsuma and Kutani vases of Japan. The vase of cloisonné
is also much in evidence in East Asia. The
Persian pottery type is famous for its blue-green color, French Sèvres for
miniature medallions, English Wedgwood for cameo reliefs, and American Rookwood
for rich tones and underglaze painting.
Source: Columbia
Encyclopedia
Anatomy of Vases
Vases are defined as
having a certain anatomy. Lowest is the foot, a distinguishable base to the
piece. Next, the body, which forms the main and often largest portion of the
piece. Resting atop the body is the shoulder, where the body curves inward.
Then the neck, where the vase is given
more height. Lastly, the lip, where the vase flares back out at the top. All
these attributes can be seen in the pictures at right. Many vases are also
given handles, though no examples are shown here. Today, the shapes of vases have
evolved from the conventional ones to modern designs and shapes.
The vase has also developed as an art medium unto itself. The ancient Greeks
famously used vases to depict scenes. It has since been developed and in 2003
the winner of the Turner Prize was Grayson Perry, for vase art.
Urns
An urn is a vase,
ordinarily covered and without handles that usually has a narrowed neck above a
footed pedestal. Knife urns on pedestals flanking a dining-room sideboard were
an English innovation of the late 1760s that went out of fashion as sideboards
with deep cupboard drawers were introduced at the end of the following decade.
Funerary urns
(also called cinerary urns) were used by many civilizations. After death, a
body would be cremated and the ashes were typically collected in an urn (for
example, the Greek lekythos). John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
(1820) is not thought to have been inspired by any single Greek vase.
Romans placed the urns in a niche in a collective tomb called a
"columbarium" (literally, "dovecote": the interior of a
dovecote is usually covered in rows of niches to house doves).
The discovery of a Bronze Age urn burial in Norfolk prompted Sir Thomas Browne
to deliver a careful description of the antiquties found, and then expand to
give a survey of most of the burial and funerary customs, ancient and current,
of which his era was aware, in Hydriotaphia or Urn Burial (1658).
The Ashes, the prize in the biennial Test cricket competition between England and Australia, are contained in a
miniature urn.
Urns are a common form of architectural detail and garden ornament. Well-known
ornamental urns include the Waterloo Vase.
In mathematics, an urn problem is a thought experiment in probability theory.
Source: Wikipedia
