ART1020  History  of  Art  in  Early  Civilization  

Week  1,  Assignment  3:  Description  and  Analysis  of  Art  

By Michael Galligan

The Warka Vase is no longer on display after it was stolen during the looting of the Baghdad Museum in 2003 (The Case of the Missing Vase). Though recovered two months later there is still no news of its current condition. Thus there is no known current setting that might help supply context or aesthetic support. Instead this description and analysis will focus upon the object and its origin. Title Presentation of offerings to Inanna also known as the Warka Vase, is a 3’1/4” alabaster vase. It dates to the Sumerian city of Uruk circa 3200-3000 BCE (Kleiner 25).

Description The Warka Vase is formed as an expanding cylindrical shaped taper. Another taper at the bottom gives the tall and narrow work stability and necessary support. The Warka Vase is carved out of a translucent stone, alabaster and has a course looking texture. The primary color of this work is vanilla white, tinged with a red ochre hue throughout that intensifies near the base. The colors are a natural result of minerals in the stone; therefore there is little contrast in value through color. However, the detailed figures are shaped with contour lines and add darker values in the recesses. The use of line is strong throughout. Starting with the organization of four separate registers and outer visible shape. The individual registers are filled with contoured outlines of people, plants, animals, objects and a god. There is further detail within the figures created by subtracting areas that form a sense of depth and space like the line in the goddesses dress.

Full  Side  View  (2)   Top  Register  Close  Up  (2)   Lower  Register  Close  Up  (2)  

Analysis This is one of the oldest, if not the oldest known example of narrative relief sculpture (4). In essence it tells a story much like a comic book of today might; through narrative images arranged in bottom to top. There is an asymmetrical balance created as three of the registers support the largest and top register where Inanna is presented with hard won and delivered offerings. You can almost sense the shifting of the winds through the plants on the bottom register. This movement is shown again through the nude male workers carrying the grain in heavy baskets. There is a sense of rhythm that can’t be ignored as shapes are repeated: workers, animals, plants, etc. This rhythm is created from patterns of shapes that are carved in relief from the translucent alabaster stone. Yet the emphasis lies on the largest figure in the top panel. This is Inanna, goddess of love and war in ancient Sumer (Kleiner 25). She is larger than any other figure on the vase and holds a symbol of her power in her left hand. There is little contrast offered as the relief is fairly shallow but it is present. The unadorned sections separating the registers help form a space for the eyes to rest from the busy narrative, thus providing another form of contrast. Unity is achieved through repetition of line, shape and pattern. It is further enhanced through consistency of the material and the organization of the four registers, which start at the bottom and culminates at the top with Inanna. A work such as this brings to mind an image of our human ancestors who were forming seminal skills such as writing, counting, farming and craftsmanship (The Oxford Companion to Archaeology). It also provides a glimpse into the hands of the artist or artists who strived with such skill to present and communicate a story, perhaps for the first time in stone. Though we are at least 5000 years apart I feel related and grateful to the artist who may have struggled with how to communicate his ideas. He triumphed though, through the use of his passion and skill to create this lasting piece of art. Work Cited

1. Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. “The Case of the Missing Vase.” The University of Texas at Austin. 2003. Apr. 8 2010 <http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/vase.html>

2. Kleiner, Fred. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Concise Western History. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, 2010.

3. Artist Unknown. “Warka Vase.” The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. 2007. 8 Apr. 2010. <http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/IRAQ/dbfiles/objects/14.htm>

4. “One of the Earliest Surviving Works of Narrative Relief Sculpture, Looted in the Iraq War.” Jeremy Norman’s History of Science. 2007. Jeremy Norman & Co, Inc. 8 Apr. 2010 <http://www.historyofscience.com/G2I/timeline/index.php?id=2617>

5. James A. Armstrong. "Uruk". The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Brian M. Fagan, ed., Oxford University Press 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Art Institute of Pittsburgh. 7 April 2010 <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t136.e0472>