Figure 5-27

The mental order likewise is personified in whole and in part. One common representation embodies thought or mind as a silent dialogue, a conversation with the self. In reliefs on sarcophagi and elsewhere this metaphor often takes the form of the Poet conversing with his Muse. Here the poet, a portrait of the deceased, represents the mortal self including the body, while the muse is the immortal soul. The image is allegorical, mixing the particular person and the immortal principle.

Other aspects of mind also become persons, again often juxtaposed with real persons. A late classical picture, for example, with Gratitude prostate before her. Other paintings, sculptures and reliefs personify virtually every named mental experience

Similar personification continues in Western art through the Middle Ages and Renaissance to the present. Gothic stonecutters, for example, often portray moral qualities of human forms at colum-heads. Botticelli’s ‘Allegory of Spring’ is a young women walking with female attendants through a vernal wood. Arcimboldo, the outstanding Renaissance personifier, composes human faces representing the seasons and other topics, variously of fruits, vegetables, fishes, mammals, and other items associated with his subject. Spring, for example, is a woman’s bust composed of flowers. Summer is a bust of fruits; Fire is one of burning sticks, logs and candles, flints, and allied items; and water is one of fishes and crustaceans. Winter again, a bust, is a grotesquely gnarled stump. (Figure 5-27)