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View Full Version : Which of the two may symbolize a darker state: a wooden or a stone statue of a god?



Kyriakos
08-15-2013, 07:35 AM
Recently i finished a new work, and was occupied with this issue a bit. I ended up using a wooden statue, which was burned, but still enabled the assumption it was of a deity. The general mood of the story is a dark and a bit alarming one.

So i thought that a wooden small statue would possibly refer more directly to either a more primitive culture, or a previous (even more ancient) state of a given culture. A stone statue of the same object would more likely signify in a far less obvious manner the oldness and possible barbarism of the time it was formed.

Moreover wood can ultimately burn, whereas stone can only be either inflicted with erosion by water, or broken up. Both seemed to me to be less potent as images than the direct burning of the wooden statue.

So this is a thread about symbols, with a particular example. I doubt there will be much discussion generated, but i placed it in this forum so as to imply more openly that it is better to have no discussion at all rather than a non-serious one :)

Whosis
04-22-2014, 07:42 PM
Yeah, most of what I can think of is that stone is darker :p. I haven't heard of many artifacts that were wooden, but stone stands out. It probably did take more sophisticated cultures (later cultures) to carve into the stone, though. Certainly things like Stonehenge have startled some for how it could be created so long ago.