Evolution in Art: As Illustrated by the Life-histories of Designs

by Alfred C. Haddon

3. “Symbols are less obvious and more artificial than mere signs, they are usually conventional, and are not only abstract but metaphysical, and often need explanation from history, religion, and customs. They do not depict but suggest objects; do not speak directly through the eye to the intelligence, but presuppose in the mind knowledge of an event or fact which the sign recalls. The symbols of the ark, dove, olive-branch, and rainbow would be wholly meaningless to people unfamiliar with the Mosaic or some similar cosmology, as would be the cross and the crescent to those ignorant of history. The last-named objects appeared in the class of emblems when used in designating the conflicting powers of Christendom and Islamism.” Among the North American Indians “the pipe is generally the symbol of peace, although in certain positions and connections it sometimes signifies preparation for war, and again subsequent victory. The hatchet is a common symbol for war, and closed hands or approaching palms denote friendship. The tortoise has been clearly used as a symbol for land.” Many pictorial signs can be used as emblems, and both can be converted into symbols or explained as such by perverted ingenuity. An interesting example of the last is seen in the early Christian conceit of the portraiture of a fish used for the name and title of Jesus Christ. This is based on the Greek word ιχθυς “an acrostic composed of the initials of the several Greek words signifying that name and title. This origin being unknown to persons whose religious enthusiasm was in direct proportion to their ignorance, they expended much rhetoric to prove that there was some true symbolic relation between an actual fish and the Saviour of men. Apart from this misapplication, the fish undoubtedly became an emblem of Christ and of Christianity.”[118]

An interesting example of the transformation of a symbol into an emblem is found in the case of the triskele or triquetra. This is now recognised to be a variant of the tetraskele, fylfot, gammadion, or swastika, as it is variously called. Originally this was a sun-symbol, but many other meanings were doubtless associated with it. The triskelion “first appears on the coins of Lycia, about B.C. 480; and then on those of Sicily, where it was adopted by Agathocles, B.C. 317-307, but not as a symbol of the morning, mid-day, and afternoon sun (‘the Three Steps of Vishnu’), but of the ‘three-sided’ or rather ‘three-ended’ or ‘three-pointed’ (triquetrous) land of Trin-akria, i.e., ‘Three-Capes,’ the ancient name of Sicily; and finally, from the seventeenth century, on the coins of the Isle of Man;”[119] where covered with chain armour, but without spurs, it was introduced by Alexander III. of Scotland in 1266, when that prince took over the island from the Norwegians; he having become familiar with the device at the English Court of Henry III. (1216-72), whose son Edmund was for a short time styled King of Sicily, and who quartered the Sicilian arms with the royal arms of England.[120] The triquetra is also met with in the armorial bearings of several noble families in England, Germany, Switzerland, and Poland, but now the legs are appropriately clothed in armour and spurs are added; probably these are relics of the Crusades. Truly “the Three Legs of Man” have run afar not only in historical time and geographical space, but also in the unseen world of symbolism.

In the section devoted to Religion I deal with the history and migration of the fylfot, one of the most widely distributed symbols, as this particular instance forms a good example of the method which should be adopted in studying symbols and their meaning.

Pictography is so obvious a means for conveying information that there is no difficulty in supposing it to have originated independently among different peoples. Its use is, and has been, very widely spread.

Petroglyphs are known from great antiquity in Europe and Asia. They are still employed in Australia; they are found in New Zealand, but most of these, like many of those which scattered throughout the continent of Australia, are comparatively ancient. They are common in some parts of South Africa, where they are due to the artistic impulses of the Bushmen; neither the Kafirs nor the Hottentots paint human and animal forms on the rocks. As petroglyphs are much more permanent than pictographs on more perishable materials, they are more likely to be preserved from ancient times, but it is probable that the latter were actually of more frequent occurrence.

There is no single system of pictography. Everywhere a figure of a man means a man, and that of a tree stands for a tree, and to this extent pictographs can be deciphered by any one. More precise information can be gleaned when the figures are provided with some unmistakable determinative, and are in a realistic attitude. In the vast majority of cases a native interpreter is required to explain the exact significance of the figures, or of the event which they commemorate. Once explained, the representations are usually found to be sufficiently appropriate. Although the meaning of simple pictographs may be guessed at readily enough, the elucidation of complex representations is a very different matter, as there are usually some signs, symbols, or determinatives of which the significance is unknown.

In attempting to decipher pictographs, not only is it necessary to have a thorough knowledge of the people who made them, but it must be borne in mind that characters substantially the same, or “homomorphs” (to use Colonel Mallery’s term) made by one set of people, have a different signification among others. Further, differing forms (“symmorphs”) for the same general conception or idea may occur. It is usually comparatively easy for any one to get a meaning out of a pictograph; but it is quite a different matter whether that was the meaning which the inscriber intended to convey.

I have dwelt at some length on pictographs, or ideograms, as they are used to so large an extent by backward peoples to convey ideas; but this is only the threshold of a much larger and more important matter, the Art of Writing.

These early steps, as has already been mentioned, have been traversed by various peoples, but fewer have attained the next stage, while the last has proved a laborious and tedious effort. “To invent and to bring to perfection the score or so of handy symbols for the expression of spoken sounds which we call our alphabet, has proved to be the most arduous enterprise on which the human intellect has ever been engaged. Its achievement tasked the genius of the three most gifted races of the ancient world. It was begun by the Egyptians, continued by the Semites, and finally perfected by the Greeks. From certain Egyptian hieroglyphic pictures, which were in use long before the Pyramids were erected, it is possible to deduce the actual outlines of almost every letter of our modern English alphabet.”[121]