Sycomancy
Divination by the leaves of the fig tree.
Questions or propositions on which one wished to be enlightened were written on these leaves. If the leaf dried quickly after the appeal to the diviner, it was an evil omen; but a good augury if the leaf dried slowly. Symbolism in Art: "It is in and through symbols," says Carlyle, "that man, consciously or unconsciously lives, works, and has his being"; and his words apply very pertinently to art in all its branches, for every one of these represents, in the first place, an attempt to reincarnate something in nature, and this attempt cannot be made save with the assistance of some manner of symbolism. The author uses the arbitrary and sadly restricted symbol of language whereby to state his conception of life, the composer employs notes wherewith to body forth his impressions and emotions; while the painter must needs be still more symbolical, his art consisting as it does in expressing distance on a flat surface, and in suggesting bulk by the practice known technically as modelling. The sculptor is also a symbolist, for, while he has at his disposal a third dimension not vouchsafed to the painter, he tries to delineate coloured things in a mono-chromatic material; while again, it is impossible for him to convey motion or action as the writer can, and he can only suggest this by moulding a figure wherein an ephemeral gesture is perpetrated. Some kind of symbolism, then, is the technical basis of all the arts; yet another kind of symbolic significance, a deeper and more mysterious one, transpires in them in many cases. As Coleridge observes, "An idea in the highest sense of the word, cannot be expressed but by a symbol"; and from time immemorial painters and sculptors have realised this, and have tried to crystalise abstract ideas by the aid of certain signs, some of them having quite an obvious meaning, but others being cryptic. Among the Japanese masters of the Akiyoe school, Fuji-no- Yama was a favourite topic, one which many of them figured scores of times; and to Occidental eyes a picture of this sort is just a picture of a mountain, but to the Japanese it meant something deeper, Fuji being almost sacred to them, and its representation in line and colour being a sort of symbol of patriotic devotion. Then Hokusai, commonly accounted the greatest master of the school aforesaid, loved to draw a pot-bellied man reclining at his ease against cushions; and this too means little in the East but much in the West, for in reality it is more than a study in voluptuousness, it represents Hotei, the god of peace and plenty. And poor people in the Land of the Rising Sun would buy a copy of this picture for those woodcuts which are so priceless now were mostly sold for a few pence originally, and were within the reach of the humblest. And they would hang it on the wall, trusting thus to win the favour of the deity it personified. Other Japanese, more religiously minded, preferred a picture of a curious male figure emanating from a plant, and this symbolised the legend that Buddha rose originally from a lotus; while further, in many Japanese draperies and the like we find a strange decoration not unlike a fleur-de-lys, and this was originally a drawing of the foot of Buddha, a drawing which evolved Symbolism in Art throughout the centuries into the form above-named.
The art of the Hindoos is likewise permeated with symbolism, much of it quite incomprehensible to Europeans; while the ancient Greek masters also traded in symbols, one which occurs repeatedly in their output being the fig-leaf, which represented simply amorousness, and was a direct reference to the story of the fall of man as detailed in the book of Genesis. This same symbol is found occasionally in early Italian works of art and it is in these, really, that we find symbolism at its apogee; for in Italy, more essentially than in any other country, art was long the handmaiden of the Church, and thus early Italian painting and sculpture is replete with emblems referring to the Christian faith. The frequent allusions in the Old Testament to the hand of God, as the instrument of his sovereign power, naturally inspired pristine artists to symbolise the deity's omnipotence by drawing a hand, sometimes with a cross behind it, sometimes emerging from clouds; while equally common among the primitives was the practice of expressing the name of Christ by the first two letters of his name in Greek, and this emblem evolved betimes, assuming divine and intricate forms. Another familiar Christian symbol, figuring in numerous sarcophagi and mosaics, is a small picture of a fish; and this refers indirectly to baptism but most directly to Christ, for those who first used this sign observed that the letters forming the word fish in Greek, IXOYE, when separated supplied the initials for the five words, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. Christ is also represented sometimes by a picture of a lion, this referring to the phrase in the Scriptures, "The lion of the tribe of Judah"; while the Passion is frequently symbolised by a drawing of a pelican, tearing open her breast to feed her young. Then the Holy Ghost is invariably suggested by a presentment of a dove, while the phenix and the peacock were both employed as symbols of the Resurrection; nor does the symbolism in the art of Italy end here, for an early artist of that country, doing a picture of a saint, would usually add some sign having reference to an event in the subject's career, or to some particular predilection on his part. Thus, if the saint was famous as a devotee of pilgrimage, a shell was drawn at his feet; or, if the doing of penance was his particular virtue, a skull was figured on some part of the picture; while finally, if his life culminated in the glory of martyrdom, this was hinted at by a sketch of an axe, a lance or a club.
Mystic symbolism waned in Italy before the eleventh century was over. Some of the anonymous early Florentines had symbolised love by a great, flaring lamp; but with the advent of Titian and Veronese all this sort of thing was discontinued, and amorous scenes were painted in realistic fashion. The great mediæval masters of religious art, moreover-men like Ghibert and Raphael, Pintunichio and Michelangelo-scorned to deal in mere emblems, and strove to depict biblical scenes with a ruthless veracity to nature, Ghibert going so far as to try and introduce a species of perspective into bas-relief. But meanwhile the practice of the fathers of Italian art had been taken up in France and in Spain, and more especially in Germany by Altdorfer and Albrecht Dürer; while in England, too, symbolism of various kinds began to become very manifest in ecclesiastical architecture and craftsmanship. The beautiful Norman Church with its square tower gave place to a Gothic one with a spire, symbol of aspiration; while the wood-work was garnished at places with emblems of the passion-three nails and a hammer, pincers, ladder, sponge, reed and spear. Besides, gargoyles commenced to appear on the outsides of Churches, the idea being that, when the building was consecrated, the devils took flight from the interior, and perched themselves on the roof, and this species of symbolism did not pass away with the middle ages, but was carried on for long afterwards, as also was the "rose window," symbol of the crown of thorns.
The churches' suzerainty over art was virtually dead by the end of the fifteenth century, and thenceforth, during fully a hundred years, painting found its chief patrons in various enlightened kings and noblemen. But symbolism was not altogether ousted accordingly, for the new patrons were hardly collectors in the usual sense of the term, they did not buy landscapes to decorate their dwellings-very few bona fide landscapes were done before the time of Claude, born in 1600-and it was mainly portraits of themselves and their families which they sought. So now, in consequence of this, a new form of symbolism became very manifest in painting, the artist being almost invariably charged to introduce his patron's coat-of-arms into some part of the canvas or panel; and, though this practice began to wane with the advent of the seventeenth century -when collecting in the real sense began painters still continued to trade in emblems of one kind and another. Even Antoine Watteau (born in 1684), doing a portrait of the divine Venetian pastellist, Rosalba Canicra, showed her with white roses in her lap! and anon this rather obvious symbolism was deepened by the engraver Liotard, for beneath his print after Watteau he inscribed the beautiful if sentimental phrase, "La plus belle des fleurs ne dure qu'un matin." A practice akin to this lingered till the T