Symbols And Symbols Of Icons

Every religion has their own symbol to represent them and every symbol has their own meaning. In this paper I will be taking about three different symbols. Those symbols are the Pentagram, the Star of David and the Jain Emblem

Have you ever wanted to be perfect? Have you ever wanted a perfect society? Imagine a place where everyone was equally beautiful, and there were no responsibilities or worries. A place where you were given everything you could’ve ever asked for. If you had a place this luxurious, would you still want it? Sometimes we think our lives would be fulfilled if we were smarter, or prettier, or more athletic. It is these times that we neglect to see how great our lives already are. This is the theme of Scott Westerfeld’s novel, Uglies. Like all great writers, Scott Westerfeld supports the theme of his novel with symbolism that is hidden in every character and event.

At the council, 338 members met to rule on the use of images to depict religious figures and ideas. This assembly, including Emperor Constantine and Leo, rules that “the unlawful art of painting living creatures blasphemed the fundamental doctrine of our salvation—namely, the Incarnation of Christ, and contradicted the six holy synods” (Iconoclastic Council, 1). The Iconoclastic Council bans the use of images and pictures to depict religious ideologies and figures because they feared that worshippers honored the image over the actual person, place, or thing represented. To support their argument, the council recalls the Holy Book in which God states, “Thou shall not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath…They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,…and served the creature more than the Creator” (2). Unlike John, this council uses stronger textual evidence from the Holy Book in order to validate their argument against icons. Furthermore, they argued that “folly” painter constructed the icons to undermine the icons. Council members aimed to demonstrate the icons as evil creations because religious affiliates did not construct them. Nevertheless, the council banned all images, relics, and other representations of

The three treatises by Damascus, are aimed “against those who rejected the use of icons.” Damascus argues that “the theological fact of the incarnation of Christ provides a solid formation for the use of icons in devotion.” Damascus explains many different physical items, such as icons, in worship and adoration. An example of one of the physical items he used as icons is, “Was not the triply blessed wood of the cross matter.”

Symbolic signs are never a direct image of the desired action. Instead a symbol which is usually associated with an action. Eg: the panda bear logo which is associated The World Wildlife Fund. The organization is not in place simply for Pandas, it’s associated with all endangered animals. However if someone comes across the symbol they immediately know who it represents. An iconic image is a direct image of a desired action. For example an icon of a man swimming on a sign close to a pool/river means that it is safe to swim in that designated area.

There are different aspects an image has compared to an icon for certain reasons. With an image, it has a form of being interpreted in various perspectives and how you want to perceive it such as Christ's face, the double helix, DNA, and the heart mentioned in Martin Kemp's novel, Christ to Coke. For instance, Christ is seen as an image of belief and heaven that people have truly embodied for countless years, which will be later categorized as an icon. However, an icon visually interacts with the audience through a message with a straightforward perspective. For example, Martin Kemp chooses the Mona Lisa, the swastika, and the coke bottle as examples of icons. Within these examples, he selects the few to show that they are icons that send a

There are many icons, however, that have more of a following than others. One of the most popular icons to date is “St. George and the Dragon”. There are countless variations of the legend that have been circulated through armies, cities, and cultures. The icon had an extremely wide influence in terms of patronage, though usually considered a fairy tale, or a child’s bedtime story. The legend of St. George goes as follows: ‘St. George was a knight and born in Cappadocia. At some point in his life he went to the city of Silene in the providence of Libya. Close to this city there was a lake where a dragon lived. This dragon was poisoning the people of the country with its breath. To appease the dragon, the townspeople would give him two sheep. Eventually they began to run out of sheep to give. They then started feeding the young people of the city to the dragon - this included the rich and the poor. Eventually the King’s daughter was the child to be sacrificed. It was this day that St. George appeared. He found the daughter weeping and asked her what was wrong, she told him about the dragon. Soon the dragon appeared, and St. George on his white horse, took out his sword, made a cross, and charged at the dragon. St. George wounded the dragon and had it led back into the city, from here he stated that if the people of Silene were baptized that he would kill the dragon - so it was done.(Abstracted from The Golden Legend by

In Greek agriculture there was many offerings that were often given to people who were respected such as Gods. These offerings consisted of human body parts and animal parts were also used after being sacrificed. Most of these offerings were said to have been carried by maidens that would place these objects in baskets and carry them above their heads. The reason why many come to the conclusion that offerings consisted of body parts is because the temples/buildings that were built back then, look like the objects that were offered. In fact, some of the human body parts were also seen as trophies. Thus, examples of the offerings that were used back then in Greek agriculture are shown in temples and buildings.

In The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, a young shepherd boy named Santiago travels the world in search of adventure and a new life for himself. During a trip to a village in the Middle East, he is approached by an old man, Melchizedek, who claims to be a king. He tells Santiago of a treasure that is hidden in the Pyramids of Egypt and how it is Santiago’s destiny to find it. Santiago chooses to embark on a journey to find this treasure and encounters many people on his way, including a crystal merchant, an Englishman, an alchemist, and a girl from a desert oasis. As he searches for his treasure, he learns about the Soul of the World, which is the language that all of creation uses to communicate with each other.

During the Middle Ages, symbolism was a big part of the current day art because of the major focus on the church and theology. Jesus and Mary were big symbols during that time, which is evident in the numerous paintings of them from the Middle Ages (Class Notes). During the Middle Ages, Jesus, Mary, Angels, the devil and the cross were huge symbols. In the painting Duccio, Jesus

Saint John of Damascus argues that iconography is not against the old testaments preachings; particularly, the Ten Commandments. He professes that it is his obligation to justify the necessity to venerate icons. These icons depicted Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints.

Icons are pictures that are used to embody a person, place, thing, or idea. McCloud hammers this concept home by drawing random things, such as a cow (McCloud, pg. 26), but reminds the reader that it is technically not a real cow. It is just an image.

While some objects are just symbols that have no inherent meaning other than that which they represent and some of the more abstract religious symbols fit into this category. Most of the time, symbolic meaning is one layer of a notion overall purpose, of course, the most symbols are also multi-layered. They may have associations on several different levels, leading in radically different directions depending on which context one look at. Symbolism is not an inherent structure of the human mind, it is a type of language, a way of conveying

I will be choosing to write a traditional research paper for my final project. The topic of my paper will be the treatment of figural images in Islam as compared to Christianity. To begin the paper, I will give an overview of what the majority of Muslims and Christians believe about images and why. The main focus of my paper will be on Iconoclasm and how certain factions of each group are opposed to and even destroy figural imagery. I will briefly discuss the Byzantine Iconoclasm and the dispute between the Iconoclasts and Iconodules; providing a brief overview of the arguments from each side. I will describe how Muslims who are not against images have similar arguments to the Iconodules of the Byzantine Iconoclasm. I will analyze early instances

Unlike Medieval painting, Roman painting does not have a specific scene to show nor a particular doctrine to teach. Some scenes might denote the same theme, but the artist tries to individualize his work by playing with the elements. In Romanesque painting the iconographical demands do not allow artists to illustrate the same icons in different ways. To spread Christianity, the symbols need to remain the same everywhere to make the message easier to understand. In Christ in Majesty the halo is an example of the recurring iconographic element. A halo around someone's head means that the person is a saint. Christ, the evangelists, and the Twelve Apostles have halos to point out their religious significance. Individualization is no longer important on Medieval works because artists focus on the expansion of the Christian message.