THE ASHMOLE BESTIARY - SYMBOLS AND COLORS ON FANTASTIC ZOOMORPHE REPRESENTATIONS
THE ASHMOLE BESTIARY - SYMBOLS AND COLORS ON FANTASTIC ZOOMORPHE REPRESENTATIONS

Summary/Abstract: In the absence of general culture books, the people of the Middle Ages in Europe took superstitions for granted, and incredible things were easily accepted as undisputed truths. Today, everyone knows what a dog or a bee is, but in those days fabulous stories were considered non-fiction. In the Middle Ages, stories beautified boring times and people valued them. At that time, people especially liked stories about animals and as they had no other sources of information, the most sought after were the "bestiaries", ie those books that described the animals and the environment in which they lived. In the research on the symbols used by human beings in daily life, it will be seen that colors have an important place in the semiotic sense. In this sense, colors have an important place both in the establishment of communication and interaction as symbols and in the formation of the human image. While it is known that a series of historical and mythical events can often affect the formation of symbolic color meanings, it has been seen that the meanings formed can sometimes gain a nominalist character. On the other hand, these symbols are not only a representative of the story on which they are based, but also a carrier of the story. The formation process of symbols and the meanings attributed to symbols by social actors significantly reveal the historicity of a society. This historicity serves not only for societies to develop certain organizations through certain stories, but also to create certain meaning maps. Individuals, who communicate with each other through a common consciousness through the meaning maps in question, bring their minds, which cannot come together mechanically, through a common image and meaning.

• Details
• Contents