Symbolism in sculpture. Signs and symbols in art

History of the sword.

In world history, the origin of the sword is hidden under the impenetrable thickness of centuries. A sword is a type of edged weapon with a straight blade, designed for chopping or chopping and stabbing, in the broadest sense - the collective name for all long bladed weapons with a straight blade.

Since ancient times, swords of various shapes have been known: short and long, wide and narrow, straight and curved, light and heavy, two-handed. In the Bronze Age, swords were made of bronze, in the Iron Age, respectively, of iron.

The sword consists of the following parts: blade, hilt, pommel and guard. The combination of the hilt, guard and pommel is called the hilt. (Fig. 1)

Garda is a detail that protects the hand of a fighter. For most medieval blades, it looks like a crosshair, but there are also cup-shaped (like a rapier), shoe-shaped (like a gladius) or even net-like guards.

The pommel (it is also the head) is the weight on the end of the sword, opposite to the blade. It usually has a more or less spherical shape. It is necessary then to balance the weapon: to shift the center of gravity of the sword from its middle closer to the hand.

What is the sword made of?

Picture 1

What is a blade and a handle, it is probably not required to explain. I note that the blades differ primarily in shape, length and method of sharpening. So, for example, most European blades in the Middle Ages were double-edged and honed from the end, but this is not at all necessary. The lateral cutting-chopping edge of the blade is called the blade, and the piercing end is called the point.

For many centuries, the sword remained the most formidable and most revered type of weapon. The extraordinary popularity of the sword has its reasons. Even if a blow with a sword in terms of penetrating and destructive power cannot be compared with an ax, and the threat radius cannot be compared with a spear or an ax, the sword has several serious advantages.

A warrior with a sword is much less tired than the owner of an unbalanced weapon. A blow consumes a small fraction of the energy that is needed to swing an ax.

It is convenient to parry blows with a sword - in any case, it is more convenient than with a pole weapon, which tends to break at the same time. The sword helps its owner to defend himself. The sword is a fast weapon. Even chopping, he is still quite maneuverable. An important consequence of all this: the sword, better than many types of weapons, allows you to realize an advantage in combat technology.

Warriors of hoary antiquity and the romantic Middle Ages saw in the sword not just a strip of pointed metal that brings death, but something more - a true friend, often endowed with magical properties, and treated him respectfully, like a living being.

In the early Middle Ages, the blacksmith seemed to be an extraordinary being, close to the sorcerer, no doubt because of his ability to make weapons and forge swords.

The symbolism of the sword.

As the main type of weapon, the sword was a symbol of war, strength and power, and as the main instrument of "God's judgment" - the highest justice and justice. And these are only the most important, generally recognized symbolic meanings of the sword. For many peoples who bowed to its magical power, the sword also meant divine intelligence, insight, power, fire, light, division or death. The loss of a sword in battle was tantamount to a loss of strength, so a broken sword symbolized defeat.

AT mythology many deities are armed with formidable punishing swords. Hindu Vishnu, for example, was depicted with a flaming sword in his hands. But everyone was surpassed in this respect by Ruevit, the god of war among the Baltic Slavs: as many as seven swords hang on his belt, and the eighth is raised in his right hand.

One of the ancient Greek legends gave rise to a new symbolic meaning of the sword. A certain Damocles, a favorite of the Syracusan tyrant Dionysius, once openly envied the wealth, power and happiness of his patron. To give Damocles a real idea of ​​the position and fate of the monarchs, Dionysius switched places with him for one day. During the feast, Damocles was seated in the royal place, but a sword was hung over his head on a horsehair. It was then that the envious realized all the illusory nature of the happiness of the crowned bearers. Since then, the expression "sword of Damocles" has become a symbol of impending, threatening danger.

AT heroic epic swords are necessarily endowed with magical power. A special place in folklore is occupied by the treasurer sword, the self-seeder is a wonderful weapon that ensures victory over enemies. But it is very difficult to get such a sword: you must first find it somewhere far away, in a burial mound, and then endure a hard fight with the ghost of the former owner of the sword. Ilya Muromets had to defeat the hero Svyatogor - a gigantic giant who propped up the sky with his head in order to take possession of his treasure sword. The German hero Beowulf rushed into a deep pool, where a terrible woman monster was waiting for him, and in the underwater lair he found a sword of giants glowing from the inside, with the help of which the brave hero struck down a monstrous enemy, invulnerable to conventional weapons. Siegfried killed 700 Nibelungs, two giants and defeated the evil dwarf Albrich in a difficult duel before the wonderful sword Balmung was in his hands.

Enchanted swords are not given to anyone other than those for whom they are intended. Only Arthur, heir to King Uther Pendragon of Britain, succeeds in extracting the enchanted sword from the anvil. The sword of the tragically deceased knight Balin was imprisoned by the magician Merlin in a piece of marble, and no one, except for the sinless knight Galahad, to whom it was intended, could by any means extract it from the stone.

Sometimes magic swords were a gift from the gods or powerful spirits. King Arthur received Excalibur directly from the hands of the Lady of the Lake. Not only the sword itself, but also its scabbard were endowed with miraculous properties: the one who wore them in battle could not lose a single drop of blood.

The swords, animated by the power of magic, behaved like intelligent living beings. Inciting the owner to fight or revenge, they rang and broke out of their sheaths themselves, not agreeing to return back until they tasted the enemy's blood. Anticipating the death of the owner, the sword grew dull and covered with bloody sweat. If the knight committed an act that stained his honor, the sword, refusing to serve the unworthy, rusted, broke, or simply fell out of his hands.

The sword usually served the owner until his death. The dying, bleeding knight broke the sword so that it would “die” with him and not get to the enemy. Mortally wounded, Arthur orders his comrade-in-arms to throw Excalibur into the waters of a magical lake. Roland, sensing the approach of death, tries to break Durendal against the stones, but his magnificent sword does not even blunt, bouncing off granite blocks with a ringing sound, and then the frantic knight falls on the sword and, covering it with his own body, dies. However, sometimes the legendary sword, anticipating a meeting with a new hero and new amazing feats, stubbornly refuses to die and waits in the wings in a burial mound or in a deep dark cave.

AT religions, especially in Christianity, sometimes the most unexpected symbolic interpretations are given to the sword. So, in Revelation, a double-edged sword, as a symbol of divine wisdom and truth, comes out ... from the mouth of Christ himself. In the Book of Genesis, the fiery sword of the biblical cherub guarding the road to Eden is a symbol of purification. The sword is clutched in the hand by one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse, personifying the war.

In Buddhism, the sword is seen as a symbolic weapon of wisdom, cutting off ignorance. In China, a sword in the hands of guardian gods is considered a talisman for the whole family: on New Year's Eve, the Chinese hang posters with images of such gods on the doors of their houses.

In Western European iconography, where the sword appears primarily as an instrument of martyrdom, it is an attribute of many saints. The sword pierces the chest of St. Justina, Euphemia and Peter the Martyr, the neck of Lucia and Agnes, the head of Thomas Becket and the book in the hands of St. Boniface, also fallen by the sword. The image of the Virgin Mary closes this sad row, whose chest is pierced by seven swords at once - the seven sorrows of the Mother of God.

Perhaps, in the hands of only one Catholic saint, Martin of Tours, the sword has a completely different semantic meaning. According to church tradition, Martin, who met a soaked and chilled traveler on the road, cut his cloak in half with a sword to shelter the poor man from bad weather. In this case, the sword is a symbol of separation, participation and goodness.

In Byzantine Orthodoxy, Roman warriors-great martyrs, defenders of the Christian faith, are especially revered: Artemy of Antioch, Dmitry of Thessalonica, Mercury, Theodore Tiron, John the Warrior. All of them were depicted with a sword in their hand or at their waist. Armed with a sword and the most warlike of the divine retinue - the archangel Gabriel.

In the Russian Orthodox Church, with a sword symbolizing protection, defense, princes can be depicted - the defenders of the Russian land: George (Yuri) Vsevolodovich, who fell in the battle with the Tatars on the City River (1238), Mstislav the Brave, Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy and others, and also martyr princes slain by the sword: Boris and Gleb.

AT fine arts Pohi of the Renaissance, the sword as an attribute is characteristic of a number of figures that allegorically represent human feelings: Courage, Firmness, Anger, Justice, Moderation and Despair. In the last two, he is depicted in a special way: the sword of Temperance is sheathed, which are firmly tied to the hilt to make it difficult to extract it; and for Despair, represented as a woman throwing herself on her own sword, it serves as an instrument of suicide.

AT heraldry the emblem of the sword may symbolize the highest military authority or justice. The military heraldic sword is usually depicted naked, blade up, except when it is placed in the coat of arms in memory of the fallen - then the sword is pointed at the ground.

In our country, the "punishing sword of the revolution", put into the hands of the employees of the Cheka, then passed to the GPU and the NKVD. In the Stalin era, this sword, which had lost all connection with the principle of socialist legality, turned into an instrument of mass terror. Before the Great Patriotic War, the emblem of a sword cutting a snake adorned the chevron of the Smersh military counterintelligence (“Death to spies!”). In the post-war period, the emblem depicting a shield with two crossed swords became the hallmark of employees of the Ministry of Justice.

In the Middle Ages in Western Europe and Japan there was a real cult of the sword. The main weapon of the knight and samurai gradually acquired a ritual and ceremonial significance. The symbolic birth of a knight was accompanied at the initiation by the triple contact of the sword with the shoulder of the candidate. The whole further life of the knight was inextricably linked with the sword: in battle, the sword served him as a weapon, on the way, the cross-shaped hilt of a sword stuck into the ground became a symbolic crucifix. The sword was an instrument of justice during the "God's judgment" and an instrument of retribution in the execution of death sentences. From the XIII-XIV centuries, the sword, as a symbol of the supreme military power of monarchs, became one of the royal, imperial and princely regalia.

Sword of Victory.

Few people know that one of the most famous and lofty Soviet sculptures - “The Motherland Calls!”, which is installed in Volgograd on Mamaev Kurgan, is only the second part of the composition, which consists of three elements at once. This triptych (a work of art, consisting of three parts and united by a common idea) also includes the monuments: “Rear to Front”, which is installed in Magnitogorsk and “Warrior-Liberator”, located in Treptow Park in Berlin. All three sculptures are united by one common element - the Sword of Victory.

Two of the three monuments of the triptych are “The Warrior-Liberator” and “The Motherland Calls!” - belong to the hand of one master, monumental sculptor Evgeny Viktorovich Vuchetich, who three times in his work addressed the theme of the sword.

The sculptor himself commented on his adherence to the image of the sword in the following way: “I only turned to the sword three times - one sword was raised to the sky by the Motherland on Mamaev Kurgan, calling on her sons to drive out the fascist barbarians trampling on Soviet soil. The second sword is held with the point down by our victorious Warrior in Treptow Park in Berlin, who cut the swastika and liberated the peoples of Europe. The third sword is being forged by a man into a plow, expressing the desire of people of good will to fight for disarmament in the name of the triumph of peace on the planet.”

The historical sequence was different. First, the Victorious Warrior was erected (1946-1949, together with the architect Ya.B. Belopolsky), the Motherland was erected on Mamayev Kurgan in 1963-1967 with the same Belopolsky and a group), and the third monument of Vuchetich, which does not apply to this series, was installed in New York in front of the UN Headquarters in 1957. The composition entitled “Let's beat swords into plowshares” shows us a worker who turns a sword into a plow. The sculpture itself was supposed to symbolize the desire of all the people of the world to fight for disarmament and the triumph of peace on Earth.

Monument "Rear - Front"

Figure 2

The first part of the trilogy "Rear to Front", located in Magnitogorsk, symbolizes the Soviet rear, which ensured the country's victory in the Great Patriotic War. The reasons why Magnitogorsk was given such an honor - to become the first Russian city in which a monument to home front workers was erected, should not surprise anyone. According to statistics, every second tank and every third shell during the war years was fired from Magnitogorsk steel

The authors of this monument were the sculptor Lev Golovnitsky and the architect Yakov Belopolsky. Two main materials were used to create the monument - granite and bronze. The height of the monument is 15 meters, while outwardly it looks much more impressive. This effect is created by the fact that the monument is located on a high hill. The central part of the monument is a composition that consists of two figures: a worker and a soldier. On the sculpture, a worker hands over a sword to a Soviet soldier. It is understood that this is the Sword of Victory, which was forged and raised in the Urals. The worker is oriented to the east (in the direction where the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works was located), and the warrior looks to the west. Where the main fighting took place during the Great Patriotic War. The rest of the monument in Magnitogorsk is an eternal flame, which was made in the form of a flower star made of granite.

An artificial hill was erected on the bank of the river to install the monument, the height of which was 18 meters (the base of the hill was specially reinforced with reinforced concrete piles so that it could withstand the weight of the erected monument and not collapse over time). The monument was made in Leningrad, and in 1979 it was installed on the spot. The monument was also supplemented with two man-height trapeziums, on which the names of the inhabitants of Magnitogorsk, who received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union during the war, were listed. In 2005, another part of the monument was opened. This time the composition was supplemented with two triangles, on which you can read the names of all the inhabitants of Magnitogorsk who died during the hostilities in 1941-1945 (a little more than 14 thousand names are listed in total).

In the sculpture, a worker hands over a sword to a Soviet soldier. It is understood that this is the Sword of Victory, which was forged and raised in the Urals, later it was raised by the “Motherland” in Volgograd. The city in which there was a radical turning point in the war, and Nazi Germany suffered one of its most significant defeats. The third monument of the “Warrior-Liberator” series lowers the Sword of Victory in the very lair of the enemy - in Berlin.

Monument "Motherland is calling!"

Figure 3

Later, this sword forged in the rear will lift up in Volgograd on Mamaev Kurgan "Motherland". In the place where there was a turning point in the Great Patriotic War. This sculpture was designed by sculptor E. V. Vuchetich and engineer N. V. Nikitin. The sculpture on Mamaev Kurgan is a figure of a woman standing with a sword raised up. This monument is a collective allegorical image of the Motherland, which calls on everyone to unite in order to defeat the enemy.

Monument "Motherland is calling!" is the compositional center of the monument-ensemble "To the Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad", which is located on Mamayev Kurgan. N.S. Khrushchev, approving the project of the monument-ensemble, demanded that the sculpture of the Motherland be higher than the American Statue of Liberty. As a result, Vuchetich had to abandon the original sculpture project - a relatively low figure of the Motherland with a folded banner in his hand. As a result, the height of the sculpture is 52 meters, and the length of the sword is 33 meters.

Initially, the 33-meter sword, which weighed 14 tons, was made of stainless steel in a titanium sheath. But the huge size of the statue led to a strong swaying of the sword, this was especially noticeable in windy weather. As a result of such influences, the structure gradually deformed, the sheets of titanium plating began to shift, and when the structure swayed, an unpleasant metal rattle appeared. To eliminate this phenomenon, in 1972 the reconstruction of the monument was organized. In the course of the work, the blade of the sword was replaced with another one, which was made of fluorinated steel, with holes made in the upper part, which were supposed to reduce the effect of the windage of the structure.

Motherland crowns a huge hill above the Square of Sorrow in Volgograd. The barrow is a bulk mound, about 14 meters high, the remains of 34,505 soldiers, the defenders of Stalingrad, are buried in it. A serpentine path leads to the top of the hill to the Motherland, along which there are 35 granite tombstones of the Heroes of the Soviet Union, participants in the Battle of Stalingrad. From the foot of the mound to its top, the serpentine consists of exactly 200 granite steps 15 cm high and 35 cm wide - according to the number of days of the Battle of Stalingrad. In addition to the figure of the Motherland, a complex of memorial sculptural compositions, as well as a hall of memory, are located near the mound.

Upon completion of the grandiose works of E.V. Vuchetich admitted: “Now the ensemble is completed. Behind this - fifteen years of searching and doubts, sadness and joy, rejected and found solutions. What did we want to say to people with this monument on the historical Mamaev Kurgan, on the site of bloody battles and immortal deeds? We tried to convey, first of all, the indestructible morale of the Soviet soldiers, from selfless devotion to the Motherland.

The monument to the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad is a monument to the greatest historical event. This is a monument to the mass of heroes. And therefore we were looking for large-scale, especially monumental solutions and forms that, in our opinion, would allow us to most fully convey the scope of mass heroism

Monument “Warrior-Liberator”

Figure 4

And already at the end of the composition, “Warrior-Liberator” will lower the sword on the swastika in the very center of Germany, in Berlin, completing the defeat of the fascist regime. A beautiful, concise and very logical composition that unites the three most famous Soviet monuments dedicated to the Great Patriotic War.

The thirteen-meter bronze figure of a soldier personifies the Soviet Army, which took up arms with a holy goal - to liberate their homeland from the invaders, to destroy fascism, which threatened humanity with enslavement, to protect the peaceful labor of people all over the earth. The figure of a young warrior breathes indestructible strength. A small child trustingly clung to the chest of a good giant. The ancient sword, with which the warrior cut the swastika, is a symbol of the protection of a just and noble cause, a symbol of the struggle for people to live happily, so that they work calmly, without fear that the fiery flurry of war will again sweep over the earth. The statue of the warrior-liberator is perfectly perceived from all sides, which is facilitated by its slight turn. The verticals of the cloak thrown over give the figure the necessary stability. The base of the monument is a green mound, reminiscent of ancient burial mounds. This brings another note to the national melody of the entire ensemble. A bright pedestal of a figure rises on the mound, inside of which a mausoleum is built - the solemn completion of the entire ensemble.

On May 8, 1949, on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, a grand opening of a monument to Soviet soldiers who died during the storming of the German capital took place in Berlin. The monument "Warrior-Liberator" was installed in Berlin's Treptow Park. Its sculptor was E. V. Vuchetich, and the architect was Ya. B. Belopolsky. The height of the warrior sculpture itself was 12 meters, its weight is 70 tons. This monument has become a symbol of the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War, it also personifies the liberation of all European peoples from fascism

The sculpture of a soldier was made in the spring of 1949 in Leningrad at the Monumental Sculpture factory, it consisted of 6 parts, which were then transported to Germany. Work on the creation of the memorial complex in Berlin was completed in May 1949. On May 8, 1949, the memorial was solemnly opened by the Soviet commandant of Berlin, Major General A. G. Kotikov.

The monument to Soviet soldiers in the center of Europe will always remind people of the sacred duty of everyone - to tirelessly fight for peace on earth.

CONCLUSION

In modern society, the sword is both a weapon and a cultural symbol, which is reflected in a variety of semantic forms and guises.

The study is devoted to clarifying the reason and the need for such an invariable presence of the sword symbol, the main focus of which is expressed in the question: “what gives such an archaic object to a person in the modern information society and why its presence in culture is inescapable, not only as a weapon”.

The belonging of the sword to culture is due to its presence in all cultural genres and in the repositories of cultural memory. The loss of the utilitarian meaning of the sword did not stop its presence in cultural forms, but determined its existence as a symbol.

The sword is one of the most complex and most common symbols. On the one hand, the sword is a formidable weapon that brings life or death, on the other hand, it is an ancient and powerful force that arose simultaneously with the Cosmic Balance and was its opposite. The sword is also a powerful magical symbol, the emblem of witchcraft. In addition, the sword is a symbol of power, justice, supreme justice, all-pervading reason, insight, phallic strength, light. The sword of Damocles is a symbol of fate. A broken sword is a defeat. Thus, the sword, having left the practical reality, nevertheless, lives in the reality of a fairly large number of people as a symbol and an artifact. Its meaning and role at the sign level practically does not change.

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The most remarkable works of ancient Egyptian art include two sculptural portraits of Queen Nefertiti (XIV century BC). Especially famous is a bust made of painted limestone, made in full size. The queen is wearing a high blue headdress, a large multi-colored necklace. The face is painted pink, the lips are red, the eyebrows are black. In the right orbit, a rock crystal eye with an ebony pupil has been preserved. A thin long neck seems to bend under the weight of the dress. The head is pushed forward a little, and this movement gives balance to the whole sculpture.

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No less beautiful is the head, intended for a small statue of the queen. Its height is 19 cm, it is made of sandstone with a warm yellow hue, well conveying the color of tanned skin. For some reason, the sculptor did not finish the work; he did not complete the ears, did not polish the surface of the stone, did not cut the orbits for the eyes. But, despite the incompleteness, the head makes a huge impression after seeing it at least once, it is already impossible to forget it, like the colored bust described above. The queen is depicted here as a young woman. Slightly smiling lips with cute dimples in the corners. The face is full of thoughtful reverie - these are the dreams of youth about future happiness, about upcoming joys, successes, dreams that are no longer in the first portrait.

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French sculptor and graphic artist. One of the most famous French sculptors. One of the founders of impressionism in sculpture. Rodin's work tends to complex symbolic images, to reveal a wide range of human emotions - from clear harmony and soft lyricism to despair and gloomy concentration. Rodin's works acquire a sketchy, as if unfinished character, which allows the master to create the impression of a painful birth of forms from spontaneous, amorphous matter. At the same time, Rodin always retained the plastic definiteness of forms and attached particular importance to their textural tangibility.

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"Bronze Age" O. Rodin 1876 Bronze. O. Rodin Museum. Paris. "Thinker" O. Rodin 1880 - 1900 Bronze. O. Rodin Museum. Paris.

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"Three Shadows" Around 1880 Bronze. O. Rodin Museum "Ugolino" 1882 Bronze. O. Rodin Museum

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The monument to Honore de Balzac, commissioned by the Society of Writers to Rodin, was the last major work of the sculptor. For four years, the master was looking for an image that fully corresponded to his idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe great novelist. Balzac marches wrapped in a monastic cassock, coarse, powerful, like a rock. Exhibited in the Salon of 1898, the statue caused another scandal. Rodin would have made me jump with indignation ... If the truth should die, subsequent generations will break my Balzac into pieces. If the truth is not subject to destruction - I predict to you that my statue will make its way ... ". The artist turned out to be right, and in 1939 a bronze monument to Balzac was erected in Paris at the intersection of Raspail and Montparnasse boulevards.

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"Venus de Milo" The common name for the Greek marble statue of the goddess of love Aphrodite (middle 2nd century BC). Found on the island of Melos (Southern Greece). Currently stored in the Louvre ... Aphrodite (ancient Greek Ἀφροδίτη, in ancient times was interpreted as a derivative of ἀφρός - “foam”) - in Greek mythology, the goddess of beauty and love, included in the number of twelve great Olympic gods. She is also the goddess of fertility, eternal spring and life. She is the goddess of marriages and even childbirth, as well as the "baby feeder". The love power of Aphrodite obeyed the gods and people; only Athena, Artemis and Hestia were beyond her control. She was ruthless to those who reject love. Wife of Hephaestus or Ares.

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Venus Capitolinus is a Roman sculpture, carved from marble, presumably in the 2nd century, modeled on the Greek statue of Aphrodite of the 4th century BC. e .. Depicts a naked woman standing next to a vessel and a robe lying on it, covering her bosom and chest with her hands (refers to the Venus Pudica type - “Modest Venus”). Found on the Viminal Hill in Rome between 1667 and 1670. Donated to the Capitoline Museum in 1754 by Pope Benedict XIV.

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"Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci K 1514 - 1515 refers to the creation of the masterpiece of the great master - "La Gioconda". Until recently, they thought that this portrait was written much earlier, in Florence, around 1503. They believed the story of Vasari, who wrote: “Leonardo undertook to complete for Francesco del Gioconde a portrait of Monna Lisa, his wife, and after working on it for four years, left it unfinished. This work is now with the French king in Fontainebleau. By the way, Leonardo resorted to the following trick: since the Madonna Lisa was very beautiful, while painting the portrait, he kept people who played the lyre or sang, and there were always jesters who kept her cheerful and removed the melancholy that is usually reported painting to performed portraits. Leonardo da Vinci - Mona Lisa. (La Gioconda, Gioconda) - Mona Lisa (La Gioconda)

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The soulful hands of Mona Lisa are as beautiful as the slight smile on her face and the primeval rocky landscape in the misty distance. Gioconda is known as the image of a mysterious, even fatal woman, but this interpretation belongs to the 19th century. It is more likely that for Leonardo this painting was the most difficult and successful exercise in the use of sfumato, and the background of the painting is the result of his research in the field of geology. Regardless of whether the subject was secular or religious, the landscape, exposing the "bones of the earth", is constantly found in the work of Leonardo

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The art of each era has its own language of symbols and allegories. In an allegorical form, it revealed the ideas and concepts that worried this or that society, reflected the views of the classes that were in power. The turning points in the development of various countries, the change of social formations gave rise to new figurative symbols and allegories.

As an example, one can cite Russia in the 18th century, where the transformations of Peter the Great necessitated the embodiment of many new concepts and ideas in allegorical images. In this regard, by order of Peter, the collection "Symbols and Emblems" was published in 1705, containing a large number of images with explanatory inscriptions. The need for such a book was so great that it went through three editions over the course of a century. The same role was played even by stove tiles with corresponding images. The great revolutionary upheaval that led to the fall of the feudal system in France led to an appeal to antiquity, in which artists drew folk, democratic images that could convey the thoughts and feelings experienced by the insurgent people. If in the early painting by L. David "The Oath of the Horatii" the struggle for the freedom of the motherland was expressed in an allegorical form in the images of antiquity, then the "La Marseillaise" by F. Ryud on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris recreates all the pathos, all the greatness of the revolutionary impulse of the people with more modern means, although in the forms of the entire group, much still goes back to the same antiquity. But we are interested not so much in the formation and development of allegorical and symbolic images in the art of the past, as in their emergence and existence in our Soviet contemporary art, especially in sculpture.

When the Soviet state was formed, the hammer and sickle, symbols of labor and unity of the working class and peasantry, were included in its coat of arms. These items, taken from reality, spoke about the nature of the labor activity of the victorious people. The vital, effective nature of the laconic emblem, which has a memorable decorative silhouette, as it were, set the necessary tone for the symbolic images of those years.

However, in subsequent years, the attitude towards allegory and symbol changed in an incomprehensible way. One could hear that allegory and symbol are alien to Soviet art, that the growth of scientific knowledge, the development and deepening of realism have limited their place and role in our art, or even made them simply superfluous. V. Mukhina spoke out against such judgments, practically proving the necessity of the existence in our art, in particular in sculpture, of both allegory and symbols. “From the life of thinking and language,” she said, “one cannot throw out the concept and representation. The concept is not always figurative. Since abstract concepts are not characteristic of sculptural art, it forces the widespread use of personification, allegory. Justice, strength, thought, agriculture, fertility, courage, kindness, etc., etc. - all these concepts are not figurative, but to convey them nunsho, without them, thought becomes impoverished. It is very difficult to convey all these concepts in sculpture, since it operates only with the human body and objects. Therefore, naturally, here we can only speak in the language of personification - allegory. At the same time, according to V. Mukhina, "the allegorical form is the most powerful figurative expression of fine art, because the artist is free to choose external data that meets his task." Mukhina in her practical activities followed her judgments. In the allegorical sculptural group "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" she embodied a whole range of ideas: the revolutionary impulse, the movement, and the youth of our republics. The hammer and sickle - symbols of the Soviet country - seemed to overshadow the excellent plastic and at the same time decorative work imbued with genuine pathos. It is the decorativeness of the form, directly dictated by the idea of ​​the work, the emotional force of the impact, appealing to the feelings of the audience, that allows the artist not only to most sharply and fully convey the entire depth of the idea, but also to express the feelings and thoughts of the Soviet people. At the same time, the emotional impact is achieved not by abstract gestures and postures, but by a moderately realistic system of both the entire group as a whole and its details. Here one should pay attention even to the position of the steps of the legs of the statues, to the nature of the hands thrown back, etc. Everything is taken by the sculptor from reality, noticed by the artist in life and turned into a sculptural form. Mukhina realized her plan by realistic means, retaining that measure of conventionality that is necessary for any allegorical work and which protects it from naturalism.

For all the modernity of the images, for all the realism of the figures, the general character of their postures and gestures is conditional, just as the hammer and sickle raised up by their hands, symbols of the Soviet state, are conditional. This convention does not cause the slightest feeling of protest; in a sense, it is natural, because it reflects our feelings, although in reality, in life, we are unlikely to meet with such gestures and postures.

Mukhina was not alone in her noble but difficult quest. Here we should remember I. Shadra. In The Liberated East, the artist was still in the grip of a speculative understanding of the allegorical work. His work, created in the manner of ancient Egyptian sculpture, has not yet embodied modern concepts, feelings and images. However, when Shadr undertook the creation of a monument to Lenin on the dam of ZAGES, he performed something more than a monumental portrait of the founder of the Soviet state. This is not only the image of the inspirer of the electrification of the country - the figure of Lenin grows into a powerful symbolic image of the Builder of the whole country, its Creator, the Conqueror of the forces of nature, directed from now on to meet the needs of the people. The generalized meaning inherent in the Shadr monument determined the artistic and plastic qualities of this outstanding work. It should also be pointed out to the decorative expressiveness of the gesture and posture of the figure, which can be defined by a short full force formula - "let it be!" At the same time, they are, of course, different from those in Mukhina's group, but they also play a primary role in the overall design. The conventionality of posture and gesture, as if passed through the prism of the decorative beginning, in turn deepens the figurative meaning of the monument.

Decorativeness and the well-known conventionality of postures and gestures combined with it are the necessary qualities of allegorical works. Their character in Soviet sculpture is inextricably linked, first of all, with the modernity of the image, with life itself, with the individual manner of a person of today to behave, with his tread, with his movements. The works of Shadr and Mukhina convincingly testify to this. We see similar properties in other works by Mukhina, for example, in groups intended to decorate the Moskvoretsky Bridge, some of them were made according to the sketches of the artist in bronze by N. Zelenskaya, Z. Ivanova and A. Sergeev. These groups, by the way, should have been installed long ago in the places provided for them. The position of the figures here is arbitrary, but at the same time, how much vitality is in the way the girls hold a sheaf over their heads, in the character of the movement of the fisherman, who grabbed a large catfish, in the admiring contemplation of the feminine girl of the fruits collected in the basket, which the young man is holding! Everything is subtly noticed by the artist in life and conveyed in decorative allegorical images that attract us with their plasticity, beauty of lines and completeness of the composition.

Neither Shadr nor Mukhina forgot that their works, embodying large and deep concepts in an allegorical form, must have a bright, eye-catching decorative effect, emotionality and beauty of forms. The Georgian craftsman V. Topuridze, who made the statue of "Victory" for the pediment of the theater in Chiatura, did not forget about this either. In a wide-stepping female figure with outstretched arms raised up, immeasurable joy, intoxication with freedom are embodied, moreover, the pose and gesture of the figure seem to symbolize the liberation of the whole world, she appeals to all mankind - in her hands it is like "the whole globe, from which the shackles fell enmity, enmity, tyranny.The artistic qualities of the sculpture are such that it can be freely compared with the figure of the Marseillaise by F. Ryud, and comparison with the statue of E. Vuchetich on the same theme from the Volgograd memorial clearly indicates on which side the height of the artistic embodiment is.

The development of plastics is inextricably linked with Gothic architecture. Sculpture occupied the first place in the fine arts of that time. It enhanced the emotionality and spectacle of Gothic architecture, it most clearly manifested the desire for a sensually poetic, pictorial embodiment not only of the religious ideas of the time, but also of nature naively deified by man and himself as its perfect product. The Gothic cathedral was especially richly decorated, which Victor Hugo figuratively compared with a giant book. The main place in its external and internal decorative decoration belonged to the statue and relief. The compositional and ideological design of the sculptural decoration was subordinated to the program developed by theologians.

Prophet Jeremiah

Prophet Daniel

Well of the Prophets

Claus Sluter, Well of the Prophets, 1395-1406, Champmol Monastery, Dijon, France

In the temple, embodying, as before, the image of the universe, the religious history of mankind with its sublime and base sides, with its life complexity was now most expanded in visible sensual forms. Thousands of statues and reliefs were made in the workshops at the cathedrals. Many generations of artists and apprentices often took part in their creation. Portals became the focus of sculptural compositions, where large statues of apostles, prophets, and saints were arranged in rows, as if meeting visitors. Tympanums, arches of portals, gaps between them, galleries of the upper tiers, niches of turrets, wimpergi were decorated with high reliefs, decorative reliefs and statues. Many small figures and separate scenes were placed in transepts, on consoles, plinths, pedestals, buttresses, and roofs. The capitals and cornices were filled with images of birds, leaves, flowers, various fruits, along the ledges of the cornices, the ribs of the turrets, the flying buttresses, half-blown stone leaves (crabs) ran exactly along the spiers, the spiers were crowned with a flower (cruciferous). All these ornamental motifs, as it were, breathed a sense of the life of nature into architectural forms. Such an abundance of floral ornamentation is not found in other architectural styles.

Gothic sculpture is an organic part of the architecture of the cathedral. It is included in the architectural design, is part of the functional elements of the building. In Reims Cathedral, it even determines its appearance. The interaction of architecture with sculpture and painting gave rise to the unique variety of impressions with which Gothic enriched contemporaries. The statues retain the closest connection with the wall, with the support. Figures of elongated proportions, as it were, echo the vertical divisions of architecture, obeying the dynamic rhythm of the whole, forming a single architectural and sculptural ensemble. Their dimensions were in exact proportion to the architectural forms and depended on the location established by the religious canons. In Gothic architecture, not only did the degree of subordination of sculpture to architecture increase, but the independent significance of sculpture also rose. Gothic continued the separation of the human image from the general decorative decoration begun by the Romanesque sculptors. The interpretation of the artistic form has become freer, the role of statuary round plasticity, its interaction with the surrounding spatial and light-air environment has increased. The statues were often separated from the wall, placed in niches on separate pedestals. Light bends, turns of the torsos and transfer of the weight of the body to one leg, characteristic lively poses and gestures give the figures a dynamism that somewhat breaks the vertical architectural rhythm of the cathedral.

Santa Reparata
Museo del Duomo, Florence

Santa's Cathedral Campanile
Maria del Fiore, 1337–1343

Hope, 1330
Baptistery, Florence

Sculptor and architect Andrea Pisano, doors of the Florence Baptistery, reliefs and statues of the Florence Cathedral

The drapery of clothes, emphasizing the plasticity and flexibility of the human body, its life in a spatial environment, gave great emotional expressiveness to the statues. The folds have acquired a natural weight; sinking deep, they gave rise to a rich play of light and shadow, sometimes likened to the flutes of columns, then formed tense sharp breaks, then flowed in light streams, then fell in stormy free cascades, as if echoing human experiences. Often a body was visible through thin clothes, the beauty of which began to be recognized and felt by both poets and sculptors of that time. Attention was focused on the plastic and spiritual expressiveness of faces. Humanity and gentleness appeared in the characteristics of the saints. Their images became diverse, sharply individual, concrete, the sublime was combined in them with everyday everyday life. The human face was enlivened by an expressive look, thought or experience. Addressed to those around them and to each other, the saints, full of spiritual intimacy, seemed to be talking heartily among themselves. The Gothic artist conveyed subtle spiritual movements, joy and anxiety, compassion, anger, passionate excitement, languid meditation.

Sculptural groups appear, united by plot and dramatic action, diverse in composition. The holy women weep over the tomb of the Savior, the angels rejoice, the apostles in the Last Supper are worried, sinners in hell are tormented. Reviving the plastic conquests of the Greeks (the profile image of the face and the three-quarter turn of the figure), the Gothic masters go their own way. Their attitude to the world around them is more personal, emotional. The desire to enhance the sensual authenticity of the image revealed itself in acute observation and an avid interest in the single, private, individual, portrait and even unusual, random. The human face, both beautiful and ugly, for a medieval master was a reflection of the eternal beauty and wisdom of the universe. Hence the interest in the characteristic life details with which they enriched the plastic. The heyday of sculpture began at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries in France, when the process of national awakening was on the rise. The simplicity and elegance of clear forms, the smoothness and purity of contours, the clarity of proportions, restrained gestures served in French sculpture as an expression of moral strength and spiritual perfection.

The highest achievements of Gothic sculpture are associated with the construction of Chartres, Reims and Amiens Cathedrals, numbering up to two thousand sculptural works, which are distinguished by high aesthetic pathos. Here, classical techniques of sculptural decoration were developed and a synthesis of all the arts was developed under the auspices of architecture. The Chartres masters created a number of images that are excellent in their bright individual character and spirituality, for example, the wise Old Testament "kings" of the western portal - with a seal of arrogance and isolation in their faces or in a state of internal tension. The statue of St. Theodore from the southern portal is distinguished by mature craftsmanship - it embodies the ideal pure image of a Christian knight with a trusting open face of a young man, concentrated, a little sad, and at the same time unshakably courageous. By changing the point of view, the viewer discovers different aspects of the warrior's character. Exceptional in complexity and versatility of the inner world is the portrait head of Rainier de Mouson (tombstone of the abbey of Josophat near Chartres), the Bishop of Chartres, with a face marked by intellectuality, power of thought, and nervous tension.

Hans Mulcher
Holy Trinity, 1430,
Cathedral in Ulm, Germany

Michel Colomb
Tombstone of Margrita de Foy,
1502, cathedral, Nantes, France

Michel Colomb, Saint
George slaying the dragon
Gaillon castle, France

In the statues of saints - Martin, Gregory and Jerome on the southern portal of Chartres Cathedral, a decisive step was taken in improving the construction of the human figure. While maintaining the frontal position necessary for architecture, the master revived the figures of the saints with a barely noticeable movement - a slight turn of the heads, a restrained gesture. Each image is a certain character with a corresponding state: Martin is angry and domineering, George is warm-hearted, quiet Jerome is thoughtful. At the same time, all three figures are united by a single sense of moral strength, spiritual nobility - the people of this era were consistent in their thoughts and actions with a high, but abstract concept of honor, loyalty, generosity. In the future, French sculpture followed the path of greater freedom in the staging of figures, turns, gestures, movements became distinct and varied. Among the Reims statues, the powerful figures of two women, Mary and Elizabeth, are marked by a special force of plastic expression. Each of them has an independent plastic value. At the same time, they are internally united by a silent dialogue, experiences. The young Mary, awaiting the birth of Christ, seems to be listening to the awakening of new life. Her head is the most plastically complex. The veil falling from curly hair now obscures, now opens the face and allows you to catch the subtle shades of moods slipping through the features from different points of view: now calmness, now sadness, now enlightenment, which dominates the profile. Spiritual excitement is expressed not only in classically beautiful features, but in the movement of the body, in the quivering vibration of the draperies of clothes, in the flexible sinuous lines of the contours. Mary, with her spiritual uplift, with her majestic grace, is contrasted with the image of an elderly, stern, wise, dignified and tragic foreboding Elizabeth. The images created by the Reims masters attract with moral strength, height of spiritual impulses and at the same time bodily vitality, simplicity and characteristic, charm of female beauty, close to the ancient ideal. Thoughtful Anna with delicate French features, temperamental St. Joseph (the group "The Presentation", 1240s) is an elegant secular person with a sparkling Gallic mind. The details are expressive: a sharp, perky look, a smartly twisted mustache, wildly curly hair, a curly beard, a rapid turn of the head towards the interlocutor. Energetic light and shadow modeling enhances the liveliness of expression.

The interpretation of traditional images is changing. Depicting scenes from the life of Christ, the Gothic master reveals his closeness to suffering humanity. Such is the image of Christ the Wanderer (Reims Cathedral), self-absorbed, mournful, reconciled with fate. In Christ Blessing (Amiens Cathedral), harmonious features are marked with the seal of wise moral beauty and courageous strength. The imperious gesture of the hand exactly calls the viewer to a worthy clean life. Among the people, the image of the Madonna with a baby in her arms was loved, embodying girlish purity and maternal tenderness. Since the 13th century, portals have often been dedicated to her. She is depicted with a flexible figure, with her head gently bowed to the baby, smiling, with half-closed eyes. Feminine charm and softness mark the "Gilded Madonna" of the south facade of Amiens Cathedral (late 13th century). The wide waves of lines running from the thigh to the foot, already visible in the Reims statues, acquire here the character of a movement full of noble rhythm. The flowing line brings out the graceful curve of the torso, hips and knees. In the statues of the Amiens Cathedral, the proportions are correct, the draperies naturally fit the figure. They are not characterized by the expression of the works of the Chartres masters. They are full-blooded and simple, plastically more perfect. Reims masters sometimes approach the ancient classics. Two female statues of the Strasbourg Cathedral (1230s) attract with their spiritual purity, elegance of slender proportions. One of them symbolizes the triumphant Christian Church, the other - the defeated Synagogue. The image of the Church, with an imperious gaze, with a proud posture, set off by the smooth rhythm of the folds of clothes, is given as positive. Dropping the torn tablets of the Covenant, the blindfolded Synagogue is tragic. She embodies the false Jewish religion condemned by Catholicism. The drooping head, the complex spiral movement of the flexible body, the unexpectedly sharp break of the spear express mental confusion and instability. The apt observations of the artist, the desire to reproduce specific details are noteworthy. Through the bandage on the face of the Synagogue, the outlines of the eyes are visible, through the thin fabric covering the arm of the Church, its graceful forms appear.

The sculpture of the Strasbourg Cathedral combined the features characteristic of French and German Gothic: the high ethical structure of French plastic and the expressiveness of German. The world of sublime images of Gothic sculpture often included everyday motifs, in which the folk stream of art made itself felt: grotesque figures of monks, genre figures of butchers, pharmacists, mowers, grape pickers, merchants. Subtle humor reigns in the scenes of the Last Judgment, which have lost their harsh character. Among the ugly sinners, there are often kings, monks and rich people. The “Stone calendars” (Amiens Cathedral) are depicted, which tell about the work and occupations of the peasants characteristic of each month. In 1385 Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, founded the Carthusian monastery of Champmol near Dijon, France. From the 1390s, commissioned by the duke, the best craftsmen erected monastic buildings and created custom sculptures. One of them was the Dutch sculptor Klaus Sluter, who made six human-sized stone statues of the prophets for the monastery.

In Germany, sculpture was less developed. More ponderous in its forms than the French, it captures the power of dramatic images. The tendency towards individualization of character and feelings gives rise to an almost portrait of Elizabeth of the Bamberg Cathedral (1230-1240), with severe features of a strong-willed face, with a gloomy agitated gaze. Sharp angular forms, restless broken folds of clothes enhance the drama of the image. Equestrian images appear early in Germany. The Bamberg Horseman is the embodiment of courage and chivalrous energy.

German Gothic played an important role in the development of portrait sculpture. In the statue of Margrave Eckehard of Naumburg Cathedral (mid-13th century), a typical image of an imperious, rude knight with a sensual haughty face is given. Fragility and lyricism distinguish his wife Uta - melancholic, concentrated, with a uniquely individual expressiveness, as if suddenly captured movements. From the 60s of the 13th century, spirituality was supplanted by the mannerism of pretty images, which was especially evident in small plastic. In the 14th century, cold elegance, naturalistic earthiness dominated. Sincere inspiration was often replaced by conditional schematization.

Symbolism is of great importance in the history of art and develops over time along with culture. The worldview and worldview of a medieval person differ from modern ones and have certain features, without knowing which it is impossible to fully perceive the works of art of that time. The semantic structure of the symbol is multi-layered and is designed for the active internal work of the perceiver, i.e. viewer. The very structure of the symbol is aimed at immersing each particular phenomenon in the element of the “original principles” of being and giving a holistic image through this phenomenon. If the thing allows it to be considered, then the symbol itself seems to “look” at us. The meaning of a symbol cannot be deciphered by a simple effort of the mind, one must “get used to it”, and in order to do this, one must know the symbol. There is a relationship between symbol and myth; a symbol is a myth, and inherited its social and communicative functions. Studying a symbol, we not only disassemble and consider it as an object, but at the same time allow its creator to appeal to us: this is how the artist not only evokes feelings in the viewer, but also makes him involved in what is happening in the picture.

In my article, using the example of paintings by great artists, I will talk about the symbols of that period in Europe, when they became one of the general cultural principles in painting. But since Christian symbolism found a variety of expressions in medieval painting, I will begin the story with a brief coverage of Christian symbols and canons.

Symbols are recognizable elements that convey specific meaning, ideas, concepts - serve as a reliable "language" in all visual arts and especially in painting. There is no doubt that some symbols arose among the peoples independently; many similar symbols can be explained by common psychological and cultural reasons, for example, the symbol of the sun - in the form of a wheel, lightning - in the form of a hammer; but in many cases cultural interaction of peoples and the transfer of symbols through cultural and trade relations, monetary circulation, and religious ideas are found. Many symbols have acquired an immensely wide meaning, for example, the symbols of the cross, the eagle, the fish, and symbols such as the lily and the rose have become a permanent fixture in the images of St. Virgin Mary; St. George strikes a sea dragon with his spear; a halo surrounds the heads of the saints.

The symbol refers not only to the mind, but also to the feelings of a person, his subconscious, gives rise to complex associations and often depends on the era, religion, culture of the people. If the symbol is polysemantic, then one must take from its meanings that corresponds to the era, time, general system, spirit of the picture - does not contradict it and does not destroy it. A symbol can be denoted by a number, a property, a form. For example, the number 7 is a symbol of perfection and completeness (seven colors of the rainbow, seven notes, seven days of the week, seven virtues, seven deadly sins); blue color (the color of the sky) is a symbol of everything spiritual; the shape of a circle resembling the sun and moon is a symbol of divine perfection. Another group of symbols is objects, phenomena, or actions, as well as artistic images that embody an idea. For example, an olive branch is a symbol of peace, a narcissus flower is a symbol of death, a baby is a symbol of the human soul. Light is a symbol of spiritual insight, divine grace; rainbow (meeting Heaven with Earth) - a symbol of the reconciliation of God with people, the forgiveness of human sins. Weaving symbolizes the creation of the universe, the world, the determination of the fate of all things; fishing - proselytizing (Christ taught his disciples to be "fishers of men"). The artistic image of the centaur is a symbol of base passions, strife (if depicted with a quiver, arrows and bow), in religious compositions it is a symbol of heresy. The symbol is associated with the external features of the object and always reflects its deep essence. For example, an owl is a night bird, so one of its symbolic meanings is sleep, death.
The form, themes, the content of art were closely connected with religion and were under the strictest control of the church, so there were rules and techniques in painting - canons that every artist had to follow. Types of images, compositional schemes, symbolism were approved and illuminated by the church, but the canon did not at all fetter the thought of a medieval painter, but disciplined him, forcing him to pay more careful attention to details. The language of religious symbolism was supposed to convey complex and deep concepts of spiritual reality. At that time, many could not read, but the language of symbols was instilled in any believer from childhood.
The symbolism of color, gestures, depicted objects is the language of the icon. The proportions of the face were deliberately distorted. It was believed that the eyes are the mirror of the soul, which is why the eyes on the icons are so large and penetrating. Starting from the Rublevsky time at the beginning of the 15th century. the eyes no longer wrote so exaggeratedly large, however, they are always given great attention. In Theophanes the Greek, some saints were depicted with closed eyes or even with empty eye sockets - in this way the artist tried to convey the idea that their gaze was directed not at the outside world, but inside, at the contemplation of divine truth and inner prayer. The figures of the depicted biblical characters were painted less densely, with few layers, deliberately stretched out, which created a visual effect of their lightness, overcoming the physicality and volume of their bodies. They seem to soar in space above the earth, which is an expression of their spirituality and transformed state. The actual image of a person occupies the main space of the icon. Everything else - chambers, mountains, trees play a secondary role, their iconic nature is brought to the maximum conventionality. However, they also carry a certain semantic load: a mountain symbolizes a person’s path to God, an oak is a symbol of eternal life, a cup and a vine are symbols of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, a dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, etc.
All painters resorted to the symbolism of the color of paints, each color brought its own meaning and mood:
- Gold is a color that symbolizes the radiance of Divine glory, in which the saints dwell. The golden background of the icon, the halos of saints, the golden radiance around the figure of Christ, the golden clothes of the Savior and the Virgin - all this serves as an expression of holiness and eternal values ​​belonging to the world;
- Yellow or ocher - the color of the highest power of angels, the closest in spectrum to gold, is often just its replacement;
- White - the color symbolizing purity and purity, involvement in the divine world. The clothes of Christ are written in white, for example, in the composition “Transfiguration”, as well as the clothes of the righteous on the icons depicting the Last Judgment;
- Black - a color symbolizing in some cases hell, the maximum distance from God, in others - a sign of sadness and humility;
- Blue - the color of the Virgin, also meant purity and righteousness;
- Blue - the color of greatness, symbolized the divine, heavenly, the incomprehensibility of mystery and the depth of revelation;
- Red - the royal color, a symbol of power and might (cloak of Michael the Archangel - the leader of the heavenly host and St. George - the winner of the snake); in other cases, it could be a symbol of redemptive blood, martyrdom.
- Green - symbolized eternal life, eternal flowering, and the color of the Holy Spirit.
Gesticulation also had a special symbolic meaning, since a gesture in icons conveys a certain spiritual impulse and carries certain spiritual information:
- A hand pressed to the chest - heartfelt empathy;
- Hand raised up - a call to repentance;
- A hand stretched forward with an open palm is a sign of obedience and humility;
- Two hands raised up - a prayer for peace;
- Hands raised forward - a prayer for help, a gesture of request;
- Hands pressed to the cheeks - a sign of sadness, grief.
This is far from exhaustive material on the symbolism of gestures and colors (they may differ in different cultures). It is no coincidence that icons were called "theology in colors."
The objects in the hands of the depicted saint were also of great importance as signs of his service. So, the Apostle Paul was usually depicted with a book in his hands - this is the Gospel, less often with a sword - symbolizing the Word of God. Peter usually has the keys in his hands - these are the keys to the kingdom of God. The martyrs are depicted with a cross in their hands or a palm branch - symbols of belonging to the Kingdom of Heaven, the prophets usually hold the scrolls of their prophecies in their hands.
Since the spread of Christianity in the West and in the East took place under different historical conditions, church art also developed in different ways. In Western Europe, the icon had to show and tell the gospel story as truthfully as possible, hence the increasing realism and the gradual transformation of the icon into a painting with a religious plot, and as a result, the emergence of a new art “art nova”. The term - new art, borrowed from the history of music - very accurately defines the art of the Netherlands in the first half of the 15th century. Intuitive and religious-mystical knowledge of the world formed the basis of a new northern European culture. One of the founders of the art of the Early Northern Renaissance is the outstanding Dutch painter Jan van Eyck (born c. 1390 - d. 1441) - he created the "Portrait of the Arnolfini couple" - a unique phenomenon in all European painting of that time. For the first time, the artist depicted people in their everyday environment, without any connection with a religious plot or images from Holy Scripture.

Jan van Eyck
Portrait of the Arnolfini couple
1434g, wood, oil, 82x60 cm.
National Gallery, London, England

The canvas depicts the merchant Giovanni Arnolfini from the Italian city of Luca and his young wife. Both are dressed in festive festive costumes, in keeping with the complex and bizarre fashion of the time. Their poses are solemnly motionless, their faces are full of the deepest seriousness. In the depths of the cozy room hangs a round mirror - a symbol of God's all-seeing eye, reflecting the figures of two more people present in the room, but not visible to the viewer, obviously, witnesses of the marriage. In one of them, the artist depicted himself, as the inscription above the mirror reads: "Jan van Eyck was here," the artist performed the newlyweds in full size. The painter lovingly depicts things surrounding the newlyweds. These items tell a lot about the lifestyle of their owners, emphasizing their burgher virtues - thrift, modesty, love of order. The ceremony is performed in the holy of holies of the burgher's house - the bedroom, where all things have a hidden meaning, hinting at the sacredness of the marital vow and the family hearth. Almost all the objects depicted on the canvas have symbolic meanings: a dog denotes fidelity, a pair of shoes on the floor speaks of the unity of a married couple, a brush is a sign of purity, a rosary is a symbol of piety, a convex mirror is the eye of the world, oranges are the fruits of the Garden of Eden and hint at heavenly bliss , and the apple hints at the fall. One candle lit in the chandelier during the day also becomes clear - the symbolic-mystical presence of the Holy Spirit consecrating the sacrament, because from time immemorial, torches and lighted lanterns were worn during wedding processions.
Particular interest in symbolism was manifested during the period of transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. One of the largest representatives of the early Italian Renaissance is Andrea Mantegna (born c. 1431 - 1506).
Consider the painting "Prayer for the Chalice". The plot of this picture is quite traditional, but it was solved in a completely unusual way, especially in comparison with the artists of the Middle Ages. Christ is placed in the background, and even with his back to the audience. In the foreground are the sleeping disciples Peter, John and James. They still have many human weaknesses and they are depicted without halos - symbols of holiness. Thus, Mantegna showed that the most important thing for him was the spiritual perfection of his students.

Andrea Mantegna
Prayer for a cup
London, National Gallery

There are many symbols in the picture. So, the rock on which Christ prays means firmness in faith, sleep is a symbol of spiritual death. In the background are angels, one of them is holding a cross, showing that it is on the cross that Christ will die. A dry tree with a vulture portends death, and a branch with a green shoot indicates an imminent resurrection; humble rabbits sitting on the road along which a detachment of Roman soldiers will pass to take Christ into custody speak of the meekness of a person in the face of imminent death. Three stumps, left over from trees that have just been cut down and already carried away, are reminiscent of the impending crucifixion. In the foreground, grass sprouts break through from a barren rock, behind the students - a young tree - these are symbols of new life. The figures are drawn in the usual manner for the artist and seem to be carved from stone, each fold is sharply outlined in their clothes. The background is an image of a garden with dark foliage. In its tone, this greenery contrasts with the pale green light sky, which causes a feeling of deep sadness and some kind of doom.
Another approach to the symbolism of the period from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance can be seen in the paintings of Hieronymus (Jerome) Bosch (born c. 1450/1460 - 1516). The real name is Jeroen Antoniszaen van Aken, but the artist signed his works with a pseudonym.
Hieronymus Bosch is an outstanding Dutch painter who whimsically combined the features of medieval fantasy, folklore, philosophical parable and satire in his paintings. One of the founders of landscape and genre painting in Europe. His paintings are also religious and often depict saints and Christian martyrs, but these are not entirely biblical subjects. Bosch's artistic language never fit entirely into medieval symbolic interpretations. The artist often used certain symbols in the opposite sense to the generally accepted one, and also invented new symbols. Maybe that's why he was called the "gloomy science fiction writer", "honorary professor of nightmares", but modern surrealists saw in Bosch their spiritual father and forerunner.
Hieronymus Bosch created in 1503 a picture - a triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights", in which a peculiar vision of the world was fully manifested. Instead of the supposed figure of Christ, the earthly life of people in all its sinful "splendor" is depicted here. Heaven and hell are depicted on the sides. Thus, the viewer's gaze is directed not from the left edge to the right, which would create the impression of an endless series of torments (Creation of the world - the sacrifice of Christ - the Last Judgment), but from the center to the edges, and its morality can be expressed by the words: "What you deserve, then you will get."

Hieronymus Bosch
Garden of Earthly Delights 1503
Triptych, oil on wood, center 220x195 cm.
side doors 220x97 cm.

The composition of the left wing continues the theme of the creation of the world, the birth of man and depicts the scene of the "Creation of Eve". Various animals graze among the green hills, against the backdrop of a fantastic landscape of Paradise, around a pond with a bizarre structure. This is the Fountain of Life, from which various creatures emerge onto land. In the foreground, near the Tree of Knowledge, awakened Adam looks in amazement at Eve, whom God shows him. As usual with Bosch, no idyll exists without an omen of evil, and we see a pit of dark water, a cat with a mouse in its mouth (the cat is cruelty, the devil). A stunted palm growing on a mysterious orange rock is diagonally opposite to a blooming palm. Several incidents cast a dark shadow on the peaceful life of animals: a lion devours a deer, a wild boar pursues a mysterious beast. And above it all rises the Source of Life - a hybrid of a plant and a marble rock, a soaring Gothic structure set on the dark blue stones of a small island. At the very top of it there is a barely noticeable crescent, but already from inside it peeps out, like a worm, an owl - a messenger of misfortune.
The central part of the triptych - actually the "Garden of Earthly Delights" - is a panorama of a fantastic "garden of love", inhabited by many naked figures of men and women, unprecedented animals, birds and plants. Lovers shamelessly indulge in love pleasures in reservoirs, in incredible crystal structures, hiding under the peel of huge fruits or in shells. Beasts of unnatural proportions, birds, fish, butterflies, algae, huge flowers and fruits mingled with human figures. Magnificent in painting, the picture resembles a bright carpet woven from radiant and delicate colors. But this beautiful vision is deceptive, because it hides sins and vices, presented by the artist in the form of numerous symbols borrowed from folk beliefs, mystical literature and alchemy. There is a pond of luxury and a fountain, flowers of the absurd and castles of vanity. In the background - a motley cavalcade of numerous naked horsemen who ride deer, griffins, panthers and wild boars - nothing more than a cycle of passions passing through a labyrinth of pleasures. The third plan (farthest) - is crowned with a blue sky, where people fly on winged fish and with the help of their own wings - symbolize sinful sexuality, devoid of the light of divine love; the apple-boat in which lovers retire is shaped like a woman's breasts; birds become the personification of lust and depravity, fish - a symbol of restless lust, the shell is the feminine. At the bottom of the picture, a young man hugged a huge strawberry. The meaning of this image will become clear to us if we remember that in Western European art, strawberries served as a symbol of purity and virginity. Steel-colored glass sphere - symbols from the Dutch saying: "Happiness and glass - they are short-lived."
Hell is shown on the right wing and represents the third stage of the fall, when the earth itself turned into hell. In the center is a huge figure of a monster - this is the "guide" through Hell, the main "narrator". Its legs are hollow tree trunks, and they rest on two ships. Satan's body is an open eggshell, on the brim of his hat, demons and witches either walk or dance with sinful souls ... Or they lead people guilty of unnatural sin around a huge bagpipe (a symbol of the male principle). Around the ruler of Hell, the punishment of sins takes place: one sinner was crucified, pierced with the strings of a harp; next to him, a red-bodied demon conducts a rehearsal of an infernal orchestra from notes written on the buttocks of another sinner. Musical instruments (as a symbol of voluptuousness and depravity) are turned into instruments of torture. In a high chair sits a monster with a bird's head punishing gluttons and gluttons. He put his feet in beer jugs, and a bowler hat is put on his bird's head. And he punishes sinners by devouring them, and then they plunge into the pit. The harmless rabbit (in the picture it exceeds the size of a person) in Christianity was a symbol of the immortality of the soul and abundance. At Bosch, he plays the horn and lowers the sinner head down into the infernal fire. Giant ears carrying a large knife grind the bodies of the damned and serve as an omen of misfortune. Below, on an icy lake, a man balances on a large skate that carries him to an ice hole. A huge key, attached to the shaft by a monk, betrays the latter's desire for marriage, which is forbidden for members of the clergy. A helpless male figure struggles with the amorous advances of a pig, dressed as a nun.

fragment

“In this horror there is no salvation for those who are steeped in sins,” says Bosch pessimistically. If Mantegna used entirely biblical symbols, then in Bosch they become “materialistic”. But they materialize in a completely individual manner. There are so many ambiguous and mysterious things in his paintings that Bosch is still sometimes referred to as a person who visited the Last Judgment. But "acting in his art as a thinker, he looked at the world through the eyes of an artist." His characters are like nightmarish images of the Apocalypse and at the same time like a merry carnival of devils. However, with all the many interpretations of the meaning of the Garden of Earthly Delights, none of them can fully cover all the images of the picture.
At the very end of the 16th century, a peculiar genre developed in the visual arts, in which artists showed an extraordinary interest in the exact reproduction of musical compositions and instruments in paintings and engravings. This genre involves the viewer in thinking about the symbolic meaning that the old European masters of painting endowed (by the way, following the musical theorists) musical instruments, and this gave certain “overtones” to many paintings by European artists of the Middle Ages, Renaissance and later.

Vigée - Lebrun Marie - Louise - Elisabeth
(1755-1842)
Portrait of Madame de Stael as Corinne 1808
Canvas, oil. 140x118 cm.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Geneva

Here are some examples:
- Lute - an attribute of Music (as one of the seven free arts), Hearing (one of the five senses), Polyhymnia (one of the nine muses); lute - with a broken string, depicted in a still life symbolizes discord;
- Viola - an attribute of several muses (primarily Terpsichore), as well as Music; as a generally accepted replacement for the lyre (the viola was otherwise called the lyre), an attribute of Apollo, Orpheus and Arion;
- Flute - a shepherd's (pastoral) instrument, an attribute of the satyr Marsyas, the shepherd Argus, the gospel shepherds (in the Adoration of the Shepherds); a widespread phallic symbol among the ancients, this meaning is retained by the flute when it is played by a man in paintings depicting lovers; attribute of Vice;

Trumpet - in Christian art announces the Last Judgment; a straight trumpet is a symbol of Glory (a long trumpet is of good fame, a short one is bad); the attribute of the Muses is Calliope, Euterpe and, starting from the 17th century, Clio.
Turning to other musical instruments, we will find the connection of many of them with certain characters in mythology or Scripture. Through this connection, they acquired their symbolic meaning. Such, for example, the harp in the minds of Europeans of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was strongly associated with the biblical King David, the legendary author of psalms. David was often depicted playing this instrument in scenes from his youthful life when he was a shepherd. Such an interpretation of the biblical story brought King David closer to Orpheus, who tamed animals with his playing on the lyre. But more often David can be seen playing music on the harp in front of the melancholy Saul.
In the 17th century, the philosophical idea of ​​the frailty of all things became popular - Vanitas (Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas Vanity of vanities and all is vanity). Most clearly, she received expression in a still life. Music (notes and musical instruments) is the most vivid symbol of the transience and ephemerality of being: the sound has ceased to sound - and now it is no more, it has died. The clarity of the meaning of this musical symbol can only be compared with the skull depicted in them, an extinguished candle (with still flowing smoke) and flowers (with falling leaves). This last symbol was often chosen by the harpsichord makers of the 17th century as the decoration of their instruments. Some paintings are called that - Allegory of Frailty (or Vanitas), for example, Peter van der Villige's still life "Allegory of Frailty and Glory" (fragment).

Willige Peter
Allegory of Frailty and Glory (fragment)
1660

Apparently, it is in the vein of Vanitas that the purely musical still lifes of such artists as Bettera and Baskenis should be “read”. The latter is especially famous for its magnificent depiction of lutes, many of which are believed to have been made by the masters of the famous Amati dynasty.
Emblematic collections, published throughout the 17th century, were a good tool for deciphering paintings. Those who were familiar with such literature did not experience great problems in interpreting the paintings, because they knew that the image of the clock was associated with the concept of time, the musical trumpet or horn - with fame, ancient sculpture - with art. Precious silver vessels personified wealth. The white lily spoke of purity. The white rose testified to platonic love, and the red rose to carnal. Tulips were a symbol of rapidly disappearing beauty, the cultivation of these flowers was considered one of the most vain and futile activities. The withered flower hinted at the disappearance of feelings, and the thistle was associated with the concept of evil. Very often on the canvases there is a grape brush, which at the same time reminded of the atoning sacrifice of the Savior for the sins of mankind and testified to the onset of autumn; the fluttering butterfly symbolized the immortality of the soul. Overseas exotic shells, a collectible, hinted at a waste of money.
The landscape genre in the visual arts was also permeated with philosophical ideas, peculiar metaphors and symbols. The master of landscapes with symbols, including Christian ones, is the artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 - 1840), one of the leaders of romanticism in German fine art. On his canvases, ancient pagan and medieval history emerges in the form of melancholic motifs (Hunnic tombs, ruins of temples and monasteries), emphasizing tragic breaks rather than the connection of times. The power of colors, which are quite sonorous, is moderated by fogs and sunset or dawn haze.
In his painting “Cross in the Mountains”, the artist depicted a severe rock, on top of which stands a crucifix that goes high up. It is entwined with ivy and surrounded by evergreen fir trees. The sun has gone down, but its rays go up and illuminate the crucifix.

Caspar David Friedrich
Cross in the mountains 1808
Art gallery, Dresden

The symbolism of the images in the picture is quite simple, but meaningful in essence, and the compositional organization of the Christian idea becomes the artistic message of the artist. The setting sun and the crucifix illuminated with Jesus signify the replacement of the Old Testament by the New and the connection of the teachings of Christ with God the Father. The cross on the rock is a symbol of strong faith, and green spruces at all times are the hope for Christ. The symbolism of the images of the frame, which was specially ordered, complements the meaning of the symbols of the picture. Ears of wheat and vines point to the bread and wine of the sacrament. The radiant divine eye against the background of a triangle is a symbol of the Holy Trinity. Walter, a modern German researcher of the work of K. D. Friedrich, sees in the arched image the idea of ​​victory over death, peace and justice. Friedrich himself, in a commentary on his work, deciphered his compositional idea as follows: “With the teaching about Jesus, the old world died - the time when God the Father lived on earth. There is no longer a time where the spirit of God is understood." Friedrich showed in his painting how the concept of God is realized in symbols, hieroglyphs of nature. The landscape is designed for its internal reading. The artist, using the language of Christian symbols, makes possible the subjective perception of Christian revelations. Freed from all genre restrictions, he tried to designate through the landscape that difficult to define in the concept of God, which was associated with the idea of ​​light, the universe and the infinite. And behind these ideas, a new idea of ​​the divine principle, the world and man is being built, which came with romanticism and became known as Christian pantheism.
In order to get closer to the philosophical ideas of Caspar David Friedrich, one should pay attention to the images of light in this picture: an eye in a triangle and rays, the sun behind the mountain and a double seven-pointed star. The central image here is the sun. Having collected all its semantic correlations, we find that the sun - the spatial-geometric center of the picture (not by chance, because this image expresses the idea of ​​God the Father) - is associated with the idea of ​​the cosmos. Personality, a person in Friedrich is outside the space depicted in the picture. But his presence, nevertheless, is conceived thanks to the images of the sacrament, for the ears of wheat and the vine (bread and wine of the sacrament) are intended for a person so that he can join the source of life. If you do not turn to esotericism, then some symbols, in the language of Novalis, signatures, hieroglyphs, will remain undisclosed and not understood. First of all - a seven-pointed star. Of course, in the minds of Christians, the seven is associated with the symbol of creation (7 days of the creation of the Creator). But the seven is double, and even with a circle inside. The circle is a symbol of integrity, but the number 14 does not appear in esotericism. It remains to be assumed that the second 7 means the duality of meaning. And then we remember that the seven-pointed star is the star of magicians, each ray of which is associated with a certain planet and hour. Among the Pythagoreans, this figure (7) was considered worthy of worship. She was considered the number of religion - according to their ideas, a person is controlled by seven heavenly spirits. It is often called the number of life (this is somehow related to the fact that a child born 7 months after conception lives, but those born after 8 months often die). This number explains the mystical nature of man: 7 = 3 + 4, where 3 is the spirit, mind, soul, and 4 is the world, thus, the mystical nature of man consists of a triple spiritual body and a four-component material form. And of course, five angels are depicted on the palm vault for a reason - this figure among the Greeks was a sacred symbol of light, health and vitality, the Pythagoreans added the value of permeability here. It also symbolizes the fifth element - ether. The number five is called balance because it divides the perfect number 10 into two equal parts and is a symbol of harmony in the physical world. The pentad is a symbol of Nature, and the 5 angels that make up this figure may indicate its spirituality. It is likely that Frederick sought, through Christian and non-Christian signatures, to reflect a certain esoteric message to the world.
The artist often depicted mountains that he first saw when he was very young. Since then, they have become a frequent motif of his landscapes, a symbol of the heights of knowledge and spiritual life, for example: "Two Contemplating the Moon."

Caspar David Friedrich
Two Contemplating the Moon 1819

Two people stand on a rocky path - the path of life and peer into the distance. Near them is a large boulder - a stone of faith and a spruce - a symbol of eternal life. The moon, a symbol of the resurrection and Christ, is placed in the center of the composition and separates the “living” half of the picture with a boulder and green spruce from the “dead” half with a withered tree. A few pine trees on the rocky peaks remind us of eternal life. But on the way to it, you need to overcome the gorge swirling with fog - the abyss of sin into which a person risks falling every minute of his earthly journey.
As a legacy from medieval culture, the still life of the 17th century inherited the tradition of depicting not just a thing, but a thing-symbol. Let us turn to the still life "Memento mori" by the 17th century Dutch artist Jan de Heem (1606-1683/1984).

Jan Davids de Heem
Memento mori
Dresden Gallery

At the first glance at this picture, a beautiful bouquet of garden flowers immediately attracts attention. He occupies almost the entire space of the picture and is its main "character". But looking closer, we notice some oddities in the choice and depiction of objects located near the bouquet: it is very unusual that next to it the artist placed a skull, a shell, crumpled and torn paper with a clear inscription “Memento mori” (“Remember death”). In addition to this direct call, the skull also reminds us of death, since it is a symbol of the fragility and frailty of our life. All the numerous details of this picture speak of death, its inevitability. Note that Jan de Heem depicted a fading bouquet: the petals of the tulips faded and wilted, the poppy completely withered, and other flowers were touched by wilting. A withering bouquet in itself means the fragility of our life. In addition, the artist diligently wrote out a lot of worms and insects that eat petals, stems and leaves. And worms are symbols of decay and destruction; flies symbolize damage; butterflies - the transience, the brevity of our stay on earth. Almost all the considered elements of the composition of this still life indicate that the believing artist persistently inspires us with the idea that a person with all his earthly aspirations and worries, which are symbolically indicated by a set of different colors, is only a temporary guest on earth. But the shell, a symbol of pilgrimage, an attribute of St. Roch and James the Elder, directs the viewer's thoughts to the lofty, imperishable and eternal. But only the spiritual is eternal, our soul is immortal. Now the ideological content of the picture becomes clear: do not forget, man, that you are mortal, and during your life save your soul in order to avoid the torments of hell in the next world.
In Holland, paintings depicting objects were called “stillleven”, which can be translated both as “still nature, model”, and as “quiet life”, which very accurately conveys the specifics of the Dutch still life. The focus of attention of artists descended from heaven to earth, now they were interested not in pious reflections, but in a close study of the details of the material world. The first stilleven are simple - bread, glass of wine, fruit, fish, bacon. But all the objects in them are symbolic: the fish is a symbol of Jesus Christ; meat is mortal flesh; the knife is a symbol of the victim; lemon - a symbol of unquenched thirst; a few nuts in a shell - a soul bound by sin; wine is a symbol of Blood; bread is a symbol of the Flesh of Christ. The frailty of earthly existence is reminiscent of broken dishes and dead game, often included in the composition of canvases.
Symbols also play an important role in portrait paintings. Consider the magnificent portrait of E. S. Avdulina by the artist Orest Adamovich. Kiprensky (1782-1836). The portrait shows a young woman who is deep in thought about something sad, which seems detached from everything around her. Fragile and dreamy, she seems to be out of this world. And all the details of the portrait emphasize this state of detachment from the outside world. Avdulina is wearing a black dress, which almost merges with the general dark background of the picture, and the black color means forgetting all the worries, anxieties and worries of the surrounding everyday reality, renouncing it. That is why the color of monastic robes is black. Avdulina is wearing a pearl necklace. Pearls in Christian symbolism mean both wealth of spirit, grief and sadness. And if Avdulina herself is the embodiment of fragile young beauty and spirituality, then dark thunderclouds and a road that is barely noticeable in the dusk, gently ascending the hill, symbolize a difficult life path and evoke the idea of ​​the fragility and defenselessness of spiritualized beauty in our harsh world.

Kiprensky O.A.
Portrait of Avdulina E.S.

A sprig of hyacinth standing alone in a glass of water reminds us of a sad legend with the ridiculous death of the young favorite of the god Apollo, who after death turned into this beautiful flower. The white color of the hyacinth, like the white color in general, is a symbol of moral purity, but also of death, and the fact that the flower withers and crumbles means the transience of youth and beauty. The folded and lowered fan in Avdulina's hand also symbolizes the disappearance. This symbolism of the fan is associated with the lunar phases (non-existence, emergence, increase, full existence, decrease, disappearance). In a word, with a careful and thoughtful examination of the portrait of E. S. Avdulina, you come to the conclusion that during the artist’s work, sad thoughts owned.