Beauty beyond aesthetics: the abstract thought and the universal language of the natural world to the Sumerian/roman farmer’s eyes

  • Nelson Henrique da Silva Ferreira

Abstract

Signs of meaning - visual marks that identify individual characteristics of an image that can carry a crystalized meaning. For example, in a landscape described as having a lot of fruit trees, we have the sign of quantity and the sign of fertility, materialized by the fruits. A sign is neither positive neither negative. It just marks a specific characteristic that compounds the symbol. For each sign, we identify just one exact semantic value.


Symbol - A symbol corresponds to a compounding of signs. Those signs can be selected in order to construct a complex symbol or a traditional symbol.


Traditional symbol - When the compounding of crystalized signs of meaning expresses all the semantic extension of the symbolic image. It represents abstractly an original image that served as basis to the symbolic construction, which is present in the collective mind. The symbolic image is of spontaneous interpretation and is dependent of an empirical knowledge on natural world.


Complex symbol or literary symbol - when there is a selective compounding of crystalized signs, in order to construct a symbol, which meaning is dependent of the context. 

 

Gravitating signs on beauty abstract concept:

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Lexicon:
uru (na-ur11-ru) – to sow
še - barley
ab-sin2 (ab-sin2-na) - furrow
gu - flax
sar (sar-ra) - garden-bed

Published
2018-05-25
How to Cite
da Silva Ferreira, N. H. (2018). Beauty beyond aesthetics: the abstract thought and the universal language of the natural world to the Sumerian/roman farmer’s eyes. BAF-Online: Proceedings of the Berner Altorientalisches Forum, 2. https://doi.org/10.22012/baf.2017.03
Section
Panel 3: Describing language and symbolism