Vessel, Artistic

any one of various types of vessels used for decorative and utilitarian purposes, including vases, bowls, chalices, cups, dishes, and saltcellars whose form and decoration have an emotional and figurative basis.

Like other works of decorative applied art, glass, ceramic, metal, or other artistic vessels are used to add color to and break up interior spaces. They sometimes function as works of monumental decorative art, for example, vases used to embellish fences or the facades of buildings. The design of an artistic vessel reflects the vessel’s immediate purpose, the aesthetic ideas of the period in which the vessel is created, and, at times, politically and socially important events and ideas (for example, the Soviet agitational porcelain bearing emblems and slogans that was produced between 1918 and 1925). The artistic vessels made in various countries for everyday use are vivid examples of the organic synthesis of an object’s decorative and utilitarian functions and the stable unity of an object’s form and decoration.

The various types of Russian artistic vessels include the baklaga, bratina, endova, kvasnik, kovsh, korchaga, kumanets, kumgan, skopkar’, stopa, ftiaga, chara, and charka.