Today will probably be my last day on the
subject of Greek Pottery, but I did not want to move on until I discussed the shapes
a little bit. Ancient Greek Vases were not “one shape fits all.” As the
Metropolitan Museum’s Article yesterday noted, “Painted vases were often made
in specific shapes for specific daily uses.” (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/vase/hd_vase.htm). I also found some information on vase shapes from an online Reed College study
guide. (http://cdm.reed.edu/cdm4/studyguides/vases/intro-types.html).
(No Wikipedia today, either! Go me!)
Examples of some different vase
shapes and their uses are amphora (transporting food and wine), kanthoros or
kylix (drinking water), lekythos (pouring libations), loutrophoros (carrying
water for a bridal bath), and albastron (a tiny vase that could be tied to
the wrist for carrying perfumes and oils). As you can see, the vase shapes are a
mix of shapes for everyday uses and shapes for special or ritual
occasions. This is a picture I found on Reed’s website that shows some of the
different shapes:
Again, the complexity of these ancient traditions fascinates me. I’m not sure I can think of something similar
today. In our culture, are there really any groups of widely accepted shapes
for different purposes? The only thing I could really come up with is that we
have different shapes of wine glasses for red wine, white wine, sparkling wine,
etc. That doesn’t even come close to the complexity of the Greek Vase shapes.
Am I forgetting something? Can you think of an analogous example
in our lives today?
Finally, just because, here’s another
picture of a Greek vase. This is an amphora shaped jar:
Xoxo,
Diana
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