Towering Aloft Above The Horizon

Columns, as one of the plastic arts, were looked at by people with reverence because of their greatness and upright. In the long history, columns were always carriers of human beings' cultural life. In different times, people made a variety of magnificent columns in different areas around the world. (i.e.: the FangJian Tablet Column in Egypt, the HuaBiao Column in China, the YueShe Column in Inca, and the TuLaZhenJiGong Column in Norway.) They were not simply architectural structures. In this article, the author wants to show readers the cultural and historical connotation of columns from many aspects such as anthropology, aesthetics, cultural geology, and historical semantics and so on.First of all, let's have an analysis on columns from morphology. The most important characteristics of columns in shape are its longness, thinness, and upright. Not all columns have either a circular cross section or a square cross section. In ancient times, their geometric figures were usually irregular. The longness and thinness of columns originated from the shape of human beings' body. When they set the first stone column, they changed its natural appearance and made it personification, which symbolized human beings' awakening of their self—consciousness in nature. They had spiritual and emotional sustenance on the appreciation of columns. The reason why human being had recognition of columns came from ancient sympathetic outlook. They could realize their value and self—existence on columns. Just like LaKang analyzed in his mirror theory, columns were copies of human beings' selves, and mirror images for them to confirm their self—existence.Having been subject to the belief that everything in the world has its soul, people regarded columns as things that had life and soul. They adored columns so much because they thought that columns were sacred and this belief was followed from generation to generation. In fairy tales, columns were not only sustenance of the heaven but also the media which people could go up to the heaven. Going up to the heaven was always human beings' dreams because the God lived there. Our ancestors gave the heaven the most glorious description in many literary works. They were so charmed by the sky above us that they were always eager to go up to the heaven through those gigantic columns. In the tradition of some nationalities, setting the column and sacrificing the column were the most solemn ceremony. The sculpture (the scene of killing people to sacrifice the column) on bronze ware from GuDian times, YunNan province proved the sacredness of columns. In early civilization, many nationalities carved their adored totems on columns because of their reverence for columns. The author has a research on totemic columns according to the totem theory in anthropology. Columns meant human beings' vitality and their self—producing. In Freud's mental analysis and Rouge's psychoanalysis, the column was a metaphor for man's genitals. In the explanation on the earth and the heaven in ancient Egypt, the Earth God Gab lay on the ground and his large genitals pointed up to the sky like a grand column. The ancient Chinese characters "祖"and "且"had the same source. They were both pictograph of man's genitals, like columns. All these prove that there is a close connection between the reproduction adoration and the column adoration.Columns, the outstanding signs of the land, had their cultural—geological meaning. In fairy tales, the upright column was the axis of the universe. In ancient people's mind, they believed that the place where lived was the center of the world. And the sign of the center usually was a mighty column. The FangJian tablet column in Egypt and the middle column from "The King of Four Corners" in India symbolized the axis of the world and the center of the power. Columns were important cultural symbols. People matched the stretch up of the column with the posture of man's standing up with pride. The towering aloft of the column and the breaking off of it both had their symbols. The towering aloft of the column symbolized survival and contribution; power and order. The breaking off the column symbolized the passing away of life and the neglecting of contribution; the disintegrating of power and the overturning of the order. The author taped the symbolic meaning of columns through the research on the columns from both real life and literary works. Because the column was towering aloft and gigantic in stature, it was always the memorial of great historical events. In this article, the author discovered the connection between the style of the column and the times in different historical period from ancient times to modern times; explained the relationship between the style of the columns and the processing of history, the style of the columns and the historical narration.From all the above, we can say that columns were important way for people to memorize important historical events, recognize their selves and make their dreams of going up to the heaven come true. They played a very important role in human beings' spiritual world, culture and art field.