|
Black-and-white Dualism
The contrast of white and black (light and darkness, day and night) has a long tradition of metaphorical usage, traceable to the Ancient Near East, and explicitly in the Pythagorean '' Table of Opposites''. In Western culture as well as in Confucianism, the contrast symbolizes the moral dichotomy of good and evil. Description Day, light, and good are often linked together, in opposition to night, darkness, and evil. These contrasting metaphors may go back as far as human history, and appear in many cultures, including both the ancient Chinese and the ancient Persians. The philosophy of neoplatonism is strongly imbued with the metaphor of goodness as light.Rudolf Arnheim. (1974). Art and visual perception. Univ of California Press. "The Symbolism of Light" (pp. 324-5) Examples Religion and mythology * The Genesis creation narrative has God "separate light from darkness" on the First Day. * The Bible associates light with God, truth, and virtue; darkness is associated with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of Art of Europe, Western art.Gombrich, p. 420. It is estimated that Rembrandt's surviving works amount to about three hundred paintings, three hundred etchings and several hundred drawings. Unlike most Dutch painters of the 17th century, Rembrandt's works depict a wide range of styles and subject matter, from portrait painting, portraits and self-portraits to landscapes, genre scenes, allegorical and historical scenes, biblical and mythological subjects and animal studies. His contributions to art came in a period that historians call the Dutch Golden Age. Rembrandt never went abroad but was considerably influenced by the work of the Italian Old Masters and Bentvueghels, Dutch and Flemish artists who had studied in Italy. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aureola
An aureola or aureole (diminutive of Latin ''aurea'', "golden") is the radiance of luminous cloud which, in paintings of sacred personages, surrounds the whole figure. In Romance languages, the noun Aureola is usually more related to the disc of light surrounding the head of sacred figures, which in English is called halo or nimbus. In Indian religions, the back or head halo is called ''prabhāmaṇḍala'' or ''prabhavali''. In art In the earliest periods of Christian art it was confined to the figures of the persons of the Christian Godhead, but it was afterwards extended to the Virgin Mary and to several of the saints. The aureola, when enveloping the whole body, generally appears oval or elliptical in form, but occasionally depicted as circular, vesica piscis, or quatrefoil. When it appears merely as a luminous disk round the head, it is called specifically a '' halo'' or ''nimbus'', while the combination of nimbus and aureole is called a '' glory''. The strict di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angels
An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in various traditions like the Abrahamic religions. Other roles include protectors and guides for humans, such as guardian angels and servants of God. In Western belief-systems the term is often used to distinguish benevolent from malevolent intermediary beings. Emphasizing the distance between God and mankind, revelation-based belief-systems require angels to bridge the gap between the earthly and the transcendent realm. Angels play a lesser role in monistic belief-systems, since the gap is non-existent. However, angelic beings might be conceived as aid to achieve a proper relationship with the divine. Abrahamic religions describe angelic hierarchies, which vary by religion and sect. Some angels have specific names (such as Gabriel or Mich ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fallen Angel
Fallen angels are angels who were expelled from Heaven. The literal term "fallen angel" does not appear in any Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic religious texts, but is used to describe angels cast out of heaven. Such angels are often described as corrupting humanity by teaching forbidden knowledge or by tempting them into sin. Common motifs for their expulsion are lust, pride, envy, or an attempt to usurp divinity. The earliest appearance of the concept of fallen angels may be found in Canaanite religion, Canaanite beliefs about the ''bənē hāʾĔlōhīm'' ("sons of God"), expelled from the Pantheon (religion), divine court. ''Hêlêl ben Šāḥar'' is thrown down from heaven for claiming equality with ''ʻElyōn''. Such stories were later collected in the Old Testament and appear in Pseudepigrapha, pseudepigraphic Apocalyptic literature, Jewish literature. The concept of fallen angels derives from the assumption that the "sons of God" () mentioned in Primeval history, Genesi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and Islam, whereas religions with reincarnation usually depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations, as is the case in the Indian religions. Religions typically locate hell in another dimension or under Earth's surface. Other afterlife destinations include heaven, paradise, purgatory, limbo, and the underworld. Other religions, which do not conceive of the afterlife as a place of punishment or reward, merely describe an abode of the dead, the grave, a neutral place that is located under the surface of Earth (for example, see Kur, Hades, and Sheol). Such places are sometimes equated with the English word ''hell'', though a more correct translation would be "underworld" or "world of the dead". The ancient Mesopotamian, Greek, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heaven
Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, enthroned, or reside. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to Earth or Incarnation, incarnate and earthly beings can ascend to Heaven in the afterlife or, in exceptional cases, enter Heaven Entering heaven alive, without dying. Heaven is often described as a "highest place", the Sacred, holiest place, a paradise, in contrast to Hell or the Underworld or the "low places" and History of Christian universalism, universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, good and evil, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or orthodoxy, right beliefs or simply Will of God, divine will. Some believe in the possibility of a heaven on Earth in a ''world to come''. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gods
A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new Higher consciousness, levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life". Religions can be categorized by how many deities they worship. Monotheism, Monotheistic religions accept only one deity (predominantly referred to as "God"), whereas Polytheism, polytheistic religions accept multiple deities. Henotheism, Henotheistic religions accept one God, supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as aspects of the same divine principle. Nontheistic religions deny any supreme eter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heaven
Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, enthroned, or reside. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to Earth or Incarnation, incarnate and earthly beings can ascend to Heaven in the afterlife or, in exceptional cases, enter Heaven Entering heaven alive, without dying. Heaven is often described as a "highest place", the Sacred, holiest place, a paradise, in contrast to Hell or the Underworld or the "low places" and History of Christian universalism, universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, good and evil, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or orthodoxy, right beliefs or simply Will of God, divine will. Some believe in the possibility of a heaven on Earth in a ''world to come''. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chthonic
In Greek mythology, deities referred to as chthonic () or chthonian () were gods or spirits who inhabited the underworld or existed in or under the earth, and were typically associated with death or fertility. The terms "chthonic" and "chthonian" are derived from the Ancient Greek word () meaning 'earth' or 'soil'. The Greek adjective () means 'in, under, or beneath the earth', which can be differentiated from (), which refers to the living surface of land on the earth. In Greek, () is a descriptive word for things relating to the underworld, which was in antiquity sometimes applied as an epithet to deities such as Hermes, Demeter, and Zeus. The chthonic deities have been compared to the more commonly referred-to Olympic gods and their associated rites and cults. Olympic gods are understood to reference that which exists above the earth, particularly in the sky. Gods that are related to agriculture are also considered to have chthonic associations as planting and growing tak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tartarus
In Greek mythology, Tartarus (; ) is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato's '' Gorgias'' (), souls are judged after death and where the wicked received divine punishment. Tartarus appears in early Greek cosmology, such as in Hesiod's ''Theogony'', where the personified Tartarus is described as one of the earliest beings to exist, alongside Chaos and Gaia (Earth). Greek mythology In Greek mythology, Tartarus is both a deity and a place in the underworld. As a deity In the Greek poet Hesiod's ''Theogony'' ( late 8th century BC), Tartarus was the third of the primordial deities, following after Chaos and Gaia (Earth), and preceding Eros, and was the father, by Gaia, of the monster Typhon. According to Hyginus, Tartarus was the offspring of Aether and Gaia. As a location Hesiod asserts that a bronze anvil falling from heaven woul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hades
Hades (; , , later ), in the ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the Greek underworld, underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea (mythology), Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be Cronus#Mythology, regurgitated by his father. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titan (mythology) , Titans, and claimed joint rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth (long the province of Gaia (mythology) , Gaia) available to all three concurrently. In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his cap of invisibility , helm with Cerberus, the Polycephaly, three-headed dogs in religion#Religions, myths, legends, and cultures, guard-dog of the underworld, standing at his side. Roman-era mythographers eventually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
