(artist unknown, located at Tutub, modern Tell Khafajeh, Iraq) (c.3000-2350 bc). Tutub Scarlet Ware Vase [ceramic]. Iraq Museum, Baghdad.

Geometric, figurative shapes are balanced to near-equivalency against negative space. The result is a pleasing, harmonious mosaic that offers intuitive perpendicular rhythms. | 

There are two registers. The upper is supplementary to lower, which encapsulates the subject. All forms are geometric, ranging from pure to highly stylized natural and figurative forms. Rendering is flat with sensitivity to the relationship between positive and negative space. This is supported by non-varied pigments and crowded shape arrangement. Elemental arrangement is measured, but only to the degree to be slightly within the term “design”. Content inspiration is thematic of nature and ancient daily life.

This vase and its pictorial elements summarize the wares and style typical of the time period. Formally, geometric shapes dominate. Colors are predominantly scarlet, black and the beige of Sumerian clay slip. More pure geometric and plant shapes tend to organize and separate what amount to cells. Orientation is lateral with pleasing and appropriate rhythmic pacing. 


Shapes are harmonized through edge-definition and their organic and planar characters. They are contrasted by figurative and geometric treatment. Lines, where used, take on a narrow and diagonal directionality. This work certainly presents a pleasing, calm energy, when it’s parts are taken in whole. Eye movement is “western”, meaning fore- and background relationships are clear, and motion is from left to right. The spatial equivalence does not damage this movement. 

One of the important details of this work is how the forms and subjects are used by modern archeologists to approximate the relative time period this work was created. Relative dating is still the primary way works are fit into a chronology, and like will always be in spite of technological dating advancements. Inclusion of figurative, human forms was quite rare.