(A table of contents is available. This series will remain open for additional posts and the table of contents up-to-date as new posts are added.)
Part Thirteen: Religious Iconography
Back in Part Five of this series, we talked about sacred architecture and things to think about when designing the worship places of your peoples. I mentioned integrating symbols that represent the religion into the architecture and artwork not only around your worship houses but also your peoples’ everyday living facilities. The mention was brief enough that I thought I’d come back and expand on the idea.
This post focuses on “symbols” as they pertain to identifying iconography. We’re talking about the small, logo-like images that religions choose to use as identifying markers, not the symbology laden within the ceremonial words and actions of worship nor the iconography of religious artwork.
The symbols a religion chooses to represent itself stem from the attempt to convey not only the events that occur within the religion’s story–their lore and mythology–but also the concepts and ideas that are the core of the religion’s identity and teachings.
These symbols are an effort to illustrate the relationship between humanity and something else: to the sacred, or to the social and material world, depending on what the religion emphasizes in its doctrine.
Symbols have two layers to them: The outer layer that folks who are not practitioners of the religion are able to somewhat understand, and the deeper, more hidden meaning within that is meant for those who practice that specific religion.
They are meant to spark communication, inviting those who don’t know all of a symbol’s meanings to ask those who practice to gain a better understanding of the innermost aspects of the symbol’s context in the religion. For those who are already practitioners, the symbol represents some revelation, and each time they come in contact with it, the symbol acts as a reminder and remembrance of that revelation.
Their imagery is often concocted out of sensory perceptions and objects present in our environments. While they are most often objects of nature or physical things present in the world, they will also try to incorporate sensory perceptions through the use of abstraction.
Simplification of design is key, but alongside that is the tendency to distill down several processes/ideas/events from the religion’s experience, doctrine, and mythology down into the singular symbol.
Look for the things in the religion that help people in their everyday lives. The idea of the cross is to remind Christians they have hope and the strength that doing for others has in a community (among other things), and the taijitu helps Taoists remember the balance of change (among other things).
Remember that symbols are almost always created for the practitioners themselves first and foremost, so think about what about the religious teachings is directly helpful to have as a reminder in day to day life. Yes, the symbol is trying to show the world a little bit of insight into the religion, but it’s also to serve as an inspiration to its followers.
Symbols Over Time & Space::
The meanings and interpretations of elements of a symbol will not necessarily mean the same thing outside of the culture that created the symbol. Elements such as thrones, crowns, scales, etc., will look different and mean different things according to what they mean and look like in the culture.
The same thing happens with colors, if a symbol includes those. One culture may see the red as representing one thing while another culture may see it as meaning something else.
Therefore, a religious symbol may be acknowledged by another place as being associated with the religion, but may not be the main reference, particularly if one culture chose to emphasize one aspect of the religion’s teachings over another. Cultural diffusion may also bring a collection of multiple symbols across cultural boundaries, making two or more symbols of the same religion popular in both places.
Symbols will also come and go with time. They are normally very stable with a fixed value to the religion, but as cultures change what their focus is on what’s right, wrong, and important for their children to learn, various symbols emphasizing different cultural values will fall in and out of favor. For instance, the axe and hammer symbols have fallen mostly out of favor for Christianity.
Where symbols are placed depends heavily on the purpose of the symbol. If they are used as indicators of the presence of the holy entity/entities, then that particular symbol may not appear outside of worship spaces. If a symbol is instead an indicator of a wider meaning such as the general teachings of a religion or an experience of the religion itself, they are more likely to appear outside of the worship space (in addition to inside)–in homes, on jewelry, as talismans, carved, embossed, woven, printed, drawn, painted, any way you can think of.
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