Karen Camilleri HND 3D: The Vase

Decorating the indoors with vases was always a tradition, even before history was written! All kinds of vases are found from each era of history. This might be, because having a vase is an easy way to decorate and also, unlike a big statue, it can be travelled from one place to another very easy.

Going back 570 years before Christ the Aryballos vase was made, which is now found at the Metropolitan Museum. This is from the Egyptian times and the shape is still very similar to the ones we find today. Aryballos is made from clay and the technique used isn’t very different than the one we use today. Just like most clay items from this era this is red and black.

Most sizeable pots like this one were split into different parts before sticking together. Once these were dried up and hard, more clay was used to glue the joints together, and lastly the handles were glued. Black figure drawings and ornamental designs were attached with a slip that when moved in the fire, it turned black and the background stayed the same.

These kind of vases were very common at the time. Aryballos is a very round vase with a continuous round ornamental pattern. The colours are very neutral and the figures give the vase some action and life to it. The different levels at the top give it an interesting and flowy shape. It actually looks very similar to something we have in our homes today.

Above is a vase from the late 1800, thousands of years after the Aryballos. It is a vase from Rene Lalique, a famous designer from Art Nouveau . It is a vase made form white glass with a very small tint of blue. Just like Aryballos it has a very round shape, it is a long wide cylinder with moving figures engraved on it that give it a very flowing effect. Ten women undressed figures are surrounding the vase. They look very sensual and elegant- this was a very common style at the time. Both vases we see above have moving figures surrounding it. The difference is that the ones of Aryballos look very tribal, with no details and unproportional bodies, while the ones from Lalique are very detailed and feminine. The one of Lalique has a lot of different texture while the other one is very smooth.

Moving on to another two hundred years further, vases are still being produced, this time during the era of Pop Design. Above is the Aalto vase - an icon of Pop Design. It is a perfect example of Alvato’s Aalto free- flowing imagination. Just like Laliques’ the vase is made out of glass. This is made by first melting the glass into the mold, than they take it out and give it the right smooth texture with a piece of cardboard. Finally, it is put into an annealing kiln where a slow cooling process eliminating the internal stress from the glass. Like the other vases we have seen, it is also has a round shape, but this time very different. It looks like a bunch of cylinders connected together. The vase has no details at all, the shape itself is the detail.