The Gaze of Icon The Eye Worship in Primitive Belief and Its Expressions in Plastic Arts

DOI

10.2991/icelaic-16.2017.106How to use a DOI?

Keywords

eyes; gaze; primitive beliefs; myth; plastic arts

Abstract

Eyes are important sensory organs of human body. The primitive belief believes that the opening and closing of eyes divide light and darkness, and further connect with life and death, so in ancient mythology system it is regarded as the eyes of sun and gods, it is seen as the channel of soul, and even can communicate with heaven, earth, Gods and people. This knowledge affects the practice of ancient plastic arts, and in some civilized systems—such as the ancient Shu culture represented by Sichuan Guanghan Sanxingdui site in China, the worship of eyes is particularly clear and profound. Almost all of the icons in the belief systems acquire vitality by depicting the eyes, and they use their gaze to proclaim power and make preach, to discipline and create the worshipers who worship them.

Copyright

© 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Weiduo Wang
PY  - 2016/12
DA  - 2016/12
TI  - The Gaze of Icon The Eye Worship in Primitive Belief and Its Expressions in Plastic Arts
BT  - Proceedings of the 2016 3rd International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2016)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 452
EP  - 456
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icelaic-16.2017.106
DO  - 10.2991/icelaic-16.2017.106
ID  - Wang2016/12
ER  -