Guan Ware Vessel Analysis

The Guan Ware Vessel depicts a beautiful, delicately crafted form of art, mainly used for imperial purposes during the Southern Song dynasty in the 13th century. This chinese artwork is made of gray stoneware with crackled grayish-blue glaze, giving it balance, and stands at a height of 16.8 cm. These types of vessels were created for people of royalty.

Shape: The Guan Ware Vessel is a three-dimensional vessel that has a prominent round shape at the bottom of the vessel, but the neck of the vessel is very thin and the lip spreads out like a fan. Although these shapes are not geometric, the form in which they are attributed to the vessel give it a sense of flow. The multiple curves create an inward, outward pattern similar to the shape of an s.

Light: The soft glaze used to paint this vessel allows the lighting around it to reflect
Color: The dominant colors are sea blue, a tint of gray, and within the cracks, a soft gold. Only a few soft colors are being used, therefore creating a muted piece of art. There is a certain sense of harmony in the vessel because the gold and the grayish-blue combine well together forming a balance that does not allow one color to show more vividly than another.

Texture: The surface of the Guan Ware Vessel is soft and smooth. The tiny cracks along the surface may cause a small roughness to the piece depending on how thickly painted the glaze is. The top of the lip and the very bottom of the vessel have a round trim of a metal like object which might be a little rougher than the body of the vessel itself.

Space and Mass: The vessel looks like it contains little space due to the thin neck, but the space is found at the round bottom part of the vessel. The atmospheric perspective given by the soft blue and gray colors make the vessel look deeper, as if it had more space within. The artist uses foreshortening in the neck of the vessel because he/she shortens the roundness of the body to a very thin