How Has Symbolism Impacted on Education Through History

The exact date of the first cave art found is unknown but they are dated back to Palaeolithic times and said to be around forty thousand years old. There are around 400 sites recorded and among some of the oldest are the Magura cave in Bulgaria, 6300 BC to 3000 BC; Cueva de la Manos, Argentina, 7000 BC; Laas Gaal, Somalia, 9000 BC to 3000 BC; Lascaux paintings, France, around seventeen thousand years old; Serra da Capivara, Brazil, 23000 BC and the Altamira cave in Spain, approximately thirty-five thousand six hundred years old. They mostly consist of animals such as bison, cows, deer, horses and bulls, which were most likely their main source of food. Others show images of hunting rituals and dancing; plants and trees, tools, stars and less often human forms. Occasionally there are human hands, these are thought to be the signature of the person or people who created the art. Some of the hands were painted and some were silhouettes made by blowing paint pigment through a tube made from bone or reeds over the hand. Most of the cave art is of black and red pigment, made from iron oxide, manganese dioxide and charcoal. Some sculptures and statues of animals were also made using clay, wood or ivory.

Photo – Argentina

Originally archaeologists stated that the paintings and carvings were for art's sake only but in more recent years they suspect the artworks have a deeper meaning or purpose. The biggest example of hands is the cave in Argentina, while not the oldest, it is thought to be the most dramatic. There are approximately eight hundred and twenty-nine, most are male and only 31 of them are right hands. While it has been previously noted that handprints may have been a sort of signature; in this case, it is thought they were part of a religious ceremony before a hunt or part of an initiation ceremony which is supported by the fact that most are not big enough to have belonged to a full-sized adult.

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The locations of the other artworks were deep inside the caves which is why they are believed to have been important and created by respected elders or Shamans for ceremonial purposes or hunting magic, the images made to call upon spirits to increase their luck when hunting for food. Another more controversial view is that there is a direct link between the images and language. They could have been drawing images to represent sounds they were able to make orally, or by echoes from walking and moving in the caves. The images could have been a form of communication, either between themselves or messages left for others. Scientists suggest that they are a reflection of the development of symbolic life.

Whether these works of art were simply for aesthetics, of the spiritual origin or an attempt at language and communication, they are the first recorded signs of earlier generations of homo sapiens developing intellect. Although humans were likely to have been speaking long before language was recorded, the first signs of development into written language did not appear until 3500 – 3000 BCE when it was invented in Sumer, Iraq. The language was made up of pictographs which are small symbols drawn to represent something else and later when a more detailed language was needed to communicate about trading, the written language developed into also using phonograms, symbols used to represent sounds. The appearance of this further developed language allowed carefully trained scribes to start recording history.

Sometime later in Ancient Phoenicia, the Semitic people created the first attempt at an alphabet. It was written from right to left, consisted of 22 symbols and contained only consonants. This new and improved development in recorded language made it much easier for tradesmen to use independently. By the eighth century BC, the Phoenician alphabet had spread as far as Greece. Here it was refined, some of the original Phoenician vowels were removed but the rest was further developed to include Vowels. Some scholars in language argue that this was the first true alphabet.

Once the first alphabet was created, it became much easier for ordinary people to learn to write. It was no longer solely left to the expert scribes. Literature blossomed in Egypt and later in Greece when it reached further. Most written work consisted of heroic tales that had been spoken before, some may have held fact but have equally made up qualities; like a story including animals to represent a human event. An early example of symbolism in literature. Historically the first-named author of literature came around 2285-2250BC and her name was Enheduanna, a Mesopotamian priestess who wrote, signed and sealed hymns to the goddess Inanna.

Humans were now beginning to understand the importance of keeping a record of their lives, culture, religious beliefs and had begun to further write stories, tales and poems. Art and symbolism are at the heart of all these developments. Ancient Egyptians had hieroglyphics; Pagan Europeans such as the Celts, Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings created patterned cauldrons, armour decorated with worshipped animals and protective symbols made to wear. Tribes in Africa created the Adinkra symbols, geometric shapes and patterns hand painted on cloth to represent animals, plants, human and non-human forms. These markings would later inspire art movements such as Cubism and Dada. The first alphabet was now created and with all this recorded evidence of intellect came the understanding that homo sapiens must have always been creative and imaginative too.

Numbers, as they are known now, did not always exist. Counting was recorded using tally marks with the fifth tally across to keep track. Around 4000BC Sumerians began to use tokens to represent numbers so amounts could also be subtracted, a big step from simply carving lines into bones or rocks. With this method, sums and basic arithmetic could be done. Some civilizations started to record larger numbers using symbols. An example of this are the ancient Egyptians who used a coiled rope to represent the number one hundred. Even so, with this more advanced method, writing large numbers was laborious work. To write one thousand, the Egyptians would have had to hand carve ten coiled ropes. Most early number systems required somebody to draw many symbols to represent just one large number but later came positional notation which allowed a single symbol to represent different amounts depending on its position in a series of numbers or symbols. Currently, this method is known as Place Value when being taught in schools in the United Kingdom but there are several other names for it. By the seventh century, mathematicians in India had invented the decimal point, though not all number systems start with ten. We use a base 60 system thought up by the Babylonians which people still use to tell the time in the present day. The only number we use now, that did not always exist, is zero. Zero was invented by the Mayans and helped to distinguish the difference between numbers such as eleven or one hundred and one when the space that originally represented zero was not always easily identified.

Alchemy in Europe is dated back to around the sixteenth century. It was invented long before this in Egypt, Greece and Arabia, however, once it arrived in Europe the alchemists split forces. Some continued their traditional work, which was highly spiritual, looking for the elixir of immortal life and turning lead into gold. Many advances were made in medicine during that time. Alchemists used symbols to represent the compounds they used in their work. Other alchemists began to explore new compounds and try new experiments; this later became the modern science known as chemistry where the periodic table becomes a familiar image of numbers, letters and symbols.

Alchemical chart of affinities

While intellectual capabilities grew among humans, so did the world of art grow. The word ‘Symbolism’ in reference to the visual arts was first used in 1886 by a French critic Jean Moréas with regards to poetry created by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine. The term soon became applicable to the visual arts when artists began to reject the more realistic works of impressionists, realists and naturalists in favour of something deeper, more whimsical, mysterious and thought-provoking. The symbolist movement, 1885-1900, originated in France but soon spread throughout Europe, influencing the visual arts, poetry and literature.

Symbolism was much like romanticism evoking feelings of calm and thoughtfulness. Gustave Moreau was a famous French painter of the 19th century and the first genuine painter of the symbolist style. His work has been described by Emile Zola, as ‘a mere reaction to the modern world’. Although he was most well known for being an impressionist painter; he was heavily inspired by the romanticists. His textured paintings were often historical scenes with a supernatural twist or had a mythological theme and he had the ability to inject an element of magic and wonder into his work, portraying the unseen and indescribable. Moreau gave inspiration to the surrealists with these moving, mystical works but he was most exciting to the newly rising symbolists. There was a strong connection between symbolism and spirituality, sometimes from a pantheistic view that the higher power or God lives within everything. The symbols within the symbolist's artwork were not of obvious icons but held personal and private messages which gave more power to the mysterious and dreamlike aesthetics.

Gustave Moreau – Gelatea circa 1880

An example of the whimsical symbols used in some of Moreau’s work is Gelatea. In this painting, he reinvents a pagan myth of love and jealousy into a beauty and the beast fairy tale, showing the battle or harmonious balance between light and dark; good and evil. The painting has an otherworldly appearance, displaying the incomprehensible in oil paint on wood.

Edvard Munch, a Norwegian born, expressionist painter and printer focused more on psychological states of the human mind and deep-set emotion. Although most of Munch's work was in the style of the post-impressionists, he was also influenced by the impressionists. Some of these artists include Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cezanne. Symbolism is represented by not only the form of the object that is being painted but also the emotions attached and the artists' interpretation. Lots of Munch’s paintings were centred around the death of his sister and mother. His father suffered acute mental health due to those losses and so Munch’s childhood was emotionally charged and volatile, which gave him the tools to create his deeply emotive art. The majority of Munch's work is referred to as Symbolist because of his reference to the hidden meanings of what he was painting and not the visual appearance.

‘’ I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.” - Edvard Munch.

Not all symbolist artwork is mythological, religious or magical. Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch artist, 1853-1890 and although he was born into a religious family and worked as a preacher for some time, his work was mostly centred around the importance of colours and what they symbolised. His painting style was something extraordinary in comparison to the artwork of that time, he even bent the rule of opposing colours that seemed to be a theme with the impressionists. Vincent suffered from his mental health tremendously, eventually, he was detained in an asylum because of this. In Dutch literature, the sunflower is a symbol of devotion and loyalty. Sunflowers were of great importance to Vincent and it showed when he created seven different versions of them within his painting. The colour yellow was a colour of happiness and positivity for him and he used this repeatedly throughout a rare episode of elated mood when he painted yellow sunflowers in a yellow vase, placed on a yellow surface against a yellow wall. Using yellow this much within a single image defies the logic that it should work, however, it did, the outcome was not intended to have realistic qualities. For Vincent colour was an expression of emotion and that is the importance of his repetitive use of yellow within these paintings. Sunflowers are also symbolic of the circle of life through their different stages of decay. Perhaps this was also relevant to his erratic mood fluctuations and what they meant for him.

Later Vincent relapsed into an extremely depressed state of mind and it was during this time that he painted The Starry Night. For this, he used much darker colours which reflected the emotions he must have been experiencing at the time. Most of Vincent's work was based around what he could see within his surroundings, so the theme was very different for this image considering it was completely imagined. There was potentially some religious reference made too. The stars are painted in a galaxy like way and the church's spire reaches up high enough to connect the surrounding village to them. This could have been his way of bringing God to earth.

The Starry Night The first world war arrived and eventually, symbolism began to fade to the appearance of modernism. The areas of Europe drastically divided were those affected by modern industrialisation or places with a mostly catholic population. This is because the changes in industry represented a new, very real reality to that of the symbolists whose version was much more imaginative, and nature based.

‘The Great Upheaval’ Henry De Groux 1893. This painting symbolises the devastation and loss of the belief in nature and dreams, it pictures people evacuating and leaving that devastation behind. The cross lays broken and symbolises the loss the catholic population were experiencing at that time because more and more people were walking the path of modernity and industry. Amid drastic change and modern thought process, the critical realists thought dreams to be too unreal further pushing them to embrace the arrival of the developing modern world.

‘’It is all too clear that these people move only in search of resources and the source of dreams is running dry.’’ Gustave Kahn

Saint Augustine was born in November 354AD, he was a pagan but studied many religions and faiths before he committed himself to Christianity. He became a teacher of philosophy and religious studies and had a huge impact on education at the time. He believed all children should be educated no matter their demeanour. He transformed the education of his time sending ripples of further development through future education. Teachers learnt that their attitude to teaching would ultimately be what encouraged a more positive attitude to learn amongst students. This is still relevant in modern education and reflects in how teachers, tutors and professors are trained to deal with a diverse range of learning methods and styles to suit each student.

Through history, education has always had a consistent religious attachment. Previously religion had been a much bigger aspect of learning than it is today. However, religious studies are still a staple lesson within our schools exploring more than just the religion of our country. Faith schools can decide their curriculum where religious studies are concerned but the majority of public schools educate students on a variety of religions and practices such as Hinduism and Buddhism expanding young people's knowledge of different belief systems and cultural diversity. Religious studies are another example of symbolism in education. Schools celebrate holidays such as Christmas which is a symbol for the birth of Christ and Easter which celebrates his resurrection; children are encouraged to make palm crosses which represent the cross of Christ. Diwali, the festival of lights, is the biggest Hindu festival of the year and is also celebrated within our schools, it is a symbol for lightness over dark; good over evil.

Members of an Indian Hindu family light earthen lamps on a rangoli, a hand decorated pattern on the floor, as part of Diwali festivities in Ahmedabad, India.

Earthenware lamps on the banks of River Sarayu and a Hindu family also lighting earthenware lamps on a hand-decorated pattern on their floor.

Symbolism does not just affect education itself but also impacts the educational environment, including school uniforms. Uniforms were designed to promote equality within school settings making them a symbol for acceptance of all, no matter what background individuals come from; no matter their religion, race, skin colour or academic abilities. School logos and mottos are a symbol of the cumulative views and opinions about the setting from the staff and students who attend it. Halls and corridors are adorned with signs, each having different meanings such as ‘no running’ or ‘fire exit’. These signs are another example of colour symbolism by appropriation. We have been conditioned to believe red means stop, danger or warning and green means go or safety.

Research shows that symbolism and art are the roots of everything related to modern education. There would be no written language or numbers, which is the basis of how we educate in the modern world; No books or websites would exist to learn from. The sheer extent of examples of symbolism in education is astounding, especially the religious connections that appear to have stayed consistent from the very first artistic displays through to the present day. After carrying out some very simple independent research, it is surprising to learn that while a majority have some understanding of the relationship between symbolism and education; there is still a percentage of society that does not. It is fair to say that, the population have grown comfortable with the modern way of life and have forgotten, or have simply not learnt the origin of our education system. The simplicity of it is therefore taken for granted and the deserved appreciation and admiration for the complexity of the old ways is insufficient. Even get vocabulary enhancements for bland or overused words.