The symbol in folk art The symbol is technically an authentic plastic language that
the folk artist uses to express his feelings and the feelings of the people of his
environment and their emotions towards what shakes their feelings of events, beliefs
or ideas. It usually represents the feelings, emotions, ideas, beliefs and viewpoints of
the group. Forms do not rise to symbols unless they are loaded with social, cultural
and intellectual values of the environment, because the symbol is not just a form in
itself, but rather relates to a topic in the life, customs, traditions and society of the
popular artist. Physical things have meaning and become symbols. So the symbol is a
part that represents the whole, and the part (which is the symbol) must carry the
values of the whole (which is the environment). The popular artist turns to symbolism
without prior planning. When he chooses his artistic symbol, he performs a process of
abstraction of the form and turns it into a line, a group of lines, or a simple geometric
shape..., and when he is excited by a specific incident or situation, he creates a form
that symbolizes it. This position is recognized by the community and becomes a
symbol that lives on over the years. _ The emergence and development of symbols It
is certain that the emergence of symbols began with the emergence of civilization and
art, that is, during the early Stone Ages, when most primitive groups lived on hunting
animals and used them as food, drink and clothing (the era of the human hunter), and
this was reflected On arts that have a formal value characterized by sensitivity and
accuracy, as simple geometric designs appeared to symbolize the phenomena
surrounding him that formed his beliefs, he used to worship what he feared at times,
and what he saw in it as useful at other times, such as ibex and oxen... and he found
in recording them and He painted it on the walls and ceiling of the cave as a form of
worship, and this is a victory and closeness to the idol, and the best evidence of this is
the caves that were discovered in Asia, southern France and Tuscany, as well as in
the ruins of Badari, the Lahun desert, Naqada and the Suez Road, where they were
found. Goods dating back to the various stone eras, including cutting tools and stone
axes. Men and animal symbols and waterfowl and boats, and it was z The first
Naqada left almost geometric, where the human elements were drawn so that the
essential qualities of the human being appear in few lines and brief details, as there
were drawings of animal elements and scenes from nature, while the second Naqada
civilization was rarely used in which geometric shapes and images of natural objects
abounded. The artist did not rely on the straight line, but used the corrugated and
spiral line. It is interesting in the ancient drawings that they deliberately formulate
shapes in a geometrical decorative mould. Birds and animals were expressed in a
simplified manner, predominantly magical or totemistic, and most of them look as if
they were drawn by pens. They depend on lines and are rarely interspersed with color
spaces. The color spaces were expressed by a network of intersecting lines. The
decorative tendency of the Stone Age man was manifested in the decoration of some
pottery vessels with units such as the spiral lines, which symbolize the flow of water,
and the sinuous lines to indicate the flow of water. The human being, and we see him
drawing squares and triangles to express other symbols associated with
agriculture....and so on. As for animals and birds such as crocodiles, hippopotamuses
and swans, their depiction was brief, consisting of calligraphic inscriptions of a
decorative nature.
أ.د/عصام محمد محفوظ | Prof.Dr.Essam Mohamed Mahfouz | 20981