HOLMES] FORMS OF VESSELS 61 



these large vessels, in many cases, reaches or exceeds three-fourths of 

 an inch, and their weight must have been considerable. The potter 

 undoubtedly found it a difficult task to handle them while the clay was 

 still in a plastic or semisolid state. 



As a nile the walls of ordinary vases are surprisingly thin, and we 

 are led to admire the skill of the potter who could execute vessels of 

 large size and tine proportions with walls at no point exceeding three- 

 eighths of an inch in thickness. Size varies from the extreme propor- 

 tions above mentioned to those of to}^ vessels not more than an inch in 

 diameter and height. 



FORMS 



The aosence of all suggestiveness of form in the natural claj", 

 together with its plasticity when moist, and its brittleness when dry, 

 miist have prevented its early independent use in the shaping arts; 

 but when the means of hardening it by baking, and sti'engthening it 

 by tempering, came to be understood, a new and ever-expanding field 

 was opened to art. 



With primitive peoples the first known use of baked clay is in the 

 construction of vessels. The development of form in vessel making- 

 is governed by numerous influences and conditions; first, there are 

 functional influences or re((uirements; second, inherited suggestions 

 and limitations; third, mechanical agencies; fourth, ideographic 

 recjuirements; and fifth, esthetic forces. 



1. Function is of necessity the leading influence in all that pertains 

 to the selection of models and the determination of size and general 

 contour. Primarily the vessel was intended to contain that which unre- 

 strained would be difficult to hold. Iiandle, and transport, and its shape 

 had to be such as would jjermit the successful performance of these 

 functions. As uses difierentiated and multiplied, the various primal 

 forms underwent many changes. The manner of use also led in many 

 cases to special modifications of shape. A jDot to be placed upon the 

 fire differed in base and rim from one that was to lie suspended; a vase 

 intended to stand upright on a hard floor was diflerent in shape from 

 the one that was to be set upright in the sand. 



'2. The duties to which earthen vessels were assigned were originally 

 perfiorined Ijy other classes of vessels, and when a new material, wholly 

 amorphous and ofl'eriug no suggestions of form, came into use, shapes 

 were copied from antecedent vessels, as men, in constructing, necessa- 

 rily follow suggestions ofl'ered by what already exists. Clay vessels, 

 therefore, took forms depending much on the vessels with which the 

 potter was acquainted, and the potters of different nations having 

 unlike models produced different forms from the very start. These 

 inceptive characteristics were long retained and exerci-sed a lasting- 

 influence. No race in the world appears to have made as much use of 



