Form and Function
At a Greek symposium, kraters were placed in the center of the room. They were quite large, so they were not easily portable when filled. Thus, the wine-water mixture would be withdrawn from the krater with other vessels. In fact, Homer's Odyssey describes a steward drawing wine from a krater at a banquet and then running to and fro pouring the wine into guests' drinking cups. The modern Greek word now used for undiluted wine, krasi (κρασί), originates from the krasis (κράσις, i.e. mixing) of wine and water in kraters. Kraters were glazed on the interior to make the surface of the clay more suitable for holding water, and possibly for aesthetic reasons, since the interior could easily be seen.
Read more about this topic: Krater
Famous quotes containing the words form and, form and/or function:
“I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
No lower life that earth’s embrace
May breed with him can fright my faith.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“It may be said that the elegant Swann’s simplicity was but another, more refined form of vanity and that, like other Israelites, my parents’ old friend could present, one by one, the succession of states through which had passed his race, from the most naive snobbishness to the worst coarseness to the finest politeness.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“The function of comedy is to dispel ... unconsciousness by turning the searchlight of the keenest moral and intellectual analysis right on to it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)