Description

Heart symbolisms are one of the most commonly used icons in our culture.   The symbol invokes love and romance.  

The collage is a collection of art pieces that reveal the spectrum of heart symbolisms starting  in the 13century (top left) which depicts a man giving his heart to his lover.  This is one of the earliest uses of the heart as a romantic symbol.

The second image (as we progress down in the first row) is from the 1500’s and shows a man depositing his heart, symbolizing his lover, into a marguerite daisy.  His lover was named Marguerite.

Religious themes abound relating to the heart of Christ, as displayed in the rest of the first and all of the last row.  The symbol of the sacred heart is used by Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans. The heart of Christ represents divine love for humanity.  In the art pieces it is depicted as a bleeding or flaming heart,  illuminated with divine light, crowned by thorns, often with a piercing sword.

In the 19th century, the symbol of the heart became associated with St Valentine’s day celebrated on the 14th of February.  Valentine’s day itself first became associated with romance during the time of Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400). Some of the art pieces associated  with Valentine’s day in the collage are in the top row and in the second row.

The heart shaped symbols associated with heraldry – particularly prominent in Danish culture, were more likely reflective of the shape of the water lily leaf than the heart.  In the the heraldry of the Colleoni family of Italy, the shape was associated with inverted testicles. Some of the associated images appear in the last row.

Parametrization of the heart is a mathematical and geometric process where the measurable factors define the component shapes of the heart. The heart is basically made of two spheres and a triangle. Parametrization is a minor aspect of heart symbolisation.  The use of the symbol as a part of suit cards is well known and the origins seem obscure.  The French set the original design, when playing cards first entered Europe in the mid 1300s.  The original symbols were cups, (became hearts) swords (became spades), coins (became diamonds)  and batons (became clubs). The suits are thought to reflect social classes:

• hearts – church or clergy
• spades – swords representing nobility
• diamonds – money and merchant class
• clubs –  peasants