More Than Paper

Submitted By trishatvu
Words: 4158
Pages: 17
Open Document
More Than Paper
Trisha Vu
Professor Gerstel
Course 118255200
March 5, 2013

Typically, art and medicine are seen as two completely different categories, however, these unrelated fields are merged together in Ethiopian healing scrolls. Ethiopians believe that these scrolls contain healing properties and that they play a role in ensuring health. These scroll’s abilities demonstrate the interrelationship among art, religious faith, and their effects on a person’s well being. Several features on these scrolls include talismans, words, and a range of colors that are all used to promote their healing abilities. Unlike this art, Western Christian art is narrowly conceived as it acts to spread the faith and is made for the whole community. This art then incorporates several elements from biblical and gospel texts along with new techniques and mediums used to create art that reflects the magnificence of the churches and monasteries. With such different functions for each culture’s art, their purposes highly influence the features and therefore, show that function plays a role in a work’s visual elements. And it is through their specific functions that each culture’s art becomes different. Medicine is revolutionizing the world with its many advances, however in Ethiopia, they continue with their tradition of creating healing scrolls that provide the qualities needed to assist in maintaining a person’s health. They continue to believe that inscribed works communicate meaning through the mystical powers of words, letters, symbols, and the act of writing1 and it was through the creation of scrolls that helped emphasize and justify their beliefs. The healing properties of the scrolls influenced the unique elements put on them. For instance, the scrolls are personalized; the features are astrologically determined as each person has a corresponding zodiac sign and thereby, have their own “destiny, illnesses, enemies, protectors, colors, prayers, figures, and talismans.”2 As a result, a scroll is relevant to the person and plays an active role in their life. The length of a scroll also corresponds to a person’s height and the animal skin used to make the parchment is astrologically determined and acts as a substitute for the sick person.3 All these features of the scrolls are affected by the idea of curing a person of their ailment as only specific images, talismans, and prayers tied to that person are capable of doing so. Therefore, it can be seen that a scroll’s healing purpose highly influences how it is created and what decorations are put on it. And this all depends upon the person for which the scroll is made for. While Ethiopians believe that words and images contained healing properties, the Western Medieval culture focused more on using imagery and words to spread Christianity and educate the people. During this time, Christianity became a major part in people’s lives and it became important to create art that showed their faith.4 People believed that art could incarnate the power of the divine and through it, artists could create a place as “great as heaven.”5 As a result, the art that was produced was based upon the idea that it could spread their beliefs and teach others of their faith. With an emphasis upon meeting the needs of the community, artists incorporated important figures from biblical texts, such as Christ, Peter, and Paul, along with elements that promoted prayer and their religious stories. With such a difference in functions for art from Ethiopia and from the Western Medieval culture, it is evident that both cultures took different approaches in creating their art as they took into account what the work’s purpose was and what features would be used to support that purpose. While medieval Christian art focused more on innovation, aesthetics, and creating new ways to address the public, the Ethiopian art of healing scrolls continued with tradition. The aesthetic aspect that is seen in Medieval
Show More

Related Documents: More Than Paper

Paper Lab Report

Is there more energy in colored paper than white paper, measuring J/g. Hypothesis: The colored paper will have more energy than white paper. If the colored paper has more energy than the white paper then it will burn longer. Materials: colored paper, white paper, a flask, graduated cylinder, a cork, matches, an electric scale, water, logger­pro, logger­pro thermometer, and computer. Procedure: Measure 200 ml of water in the graduated cylinder. Pour the water from the cylinder into the flask…

Words 319 - Pages 2

Chemistry: Ph and Cellulose Fibers Essay

Paper is composed of cellulose fibers. Cellulose is a polymer of the sugar glucose and is used by plants to produce cell walls. Plant matter that has been processed to create a solution consisting of cellulose filaments suspended in water can be made into paper. A screen is passed through the solution so that the filaments can collect on it and thus form a layer. This layer of cellulose fibers is then pressed and dried to produce a usable sheet of paper. The source of the cellulose fibers, and the…

Words 624 - Pages 3

Reflection: Writing and Articles Essay

are countless ways one can learn from their own writing through revising their own paper. I believe I have improved on my writing by revision. A good example that I can reflect on is my paper on An Analysis of Two Articles on The Final Moments of King Richard III. One can see where there needs to be more attention on making clear points by using increased examples to help one understand as well as using more distinctive words. In my analysis, on the two articles on The Final Moments of King…

Words 992 - Pages 4

Analysis Of Newspaper Front Pages

newspaper is a well thought out extension of the values and themes that the newspaper's staff wishes to communicate to their carefully chosen audience. The most important theme of the front page of a newspaper is what particular region of emphasis the paper borrows its values from. To have a successful front page there must be a streamlining of those values and themes so that the core readers can recognize these specific themes. These themes are communicated through three basic categories that make up…

Words 1043 - Pages 5

Gracyn's Rhetoric Tool

Gracyn’s paper was very detailed and in-depth. Her introduction outlines very key points that she continuously covered in her writing. After reading the introduction alone, I already knew Woolf’s message and really what the meaning of the text was. She built an introduction that made you want to learn how Woolf was able to accomplish such task. Also, Gracyn did a fantastic job of connecting specific quotations and examples to her points about each rhetorical tool. Unlike mine, which was very general…

Words 821 - Pages 4

Analyze The Ways In Which You Assess Your Revision Skills

of organization and taught me how to take each idea a step at a time. Before, I would include numerous topics together into a hectic piece in order to not forget my train of thought. Now, I have learned to write down my sudden ideas onto a piece of paper and then continue with the idea I was writing. My paragraphs in my opinion no longer appear as a redundant mess. I no longer conform to popular thought. Professor Shannon has taught me to step outside my comfort zone and fight for what I believe in…

Words 1238 - Pages 5

English 1101 Reflection

believed it to be funny and laughed about it. As the semester progressed, I took more advice from this paper considering I didn’t know of a greater example at the time. It helped for a while because I have always been critical of how I write. I always wanted to write the best paper the first time around. Eventually I learned about how I wrote and what I could to improve. Before this I enjoyed writing last minute papers on the grounds that I felt that I wrote better under pressure. However, writing…

Words 606 - Pages 3

Thought Paper 1

Thought Paper #1: Due September 24 (7 points) For this thought paper you will learn more about a topic covered in the textbook. First, review chapters 1-5. Find a topic that is of interest to you and that you would like to learn more about. After reading the section in the textbook, find an empirical article (using PsycINFO), published in a peer reviewed psychological journal, about this topic. Print out the article (it needs to be turned in with your thought paper). Next, write a brief paper (no more…

Words 354 - Pages 2

Paper Guidelines Leadership Comm

Guidelines for final paper Final paper: Integration of ideas related to leadership, change, and communication. This course requires critical thought about the course readings and class discussions in order to critically understand and develop your own sense of what leadership means, so the mid-term and final papers will focus on your perspectives on leadership and communication, drawing from the course readings and outside supporting materials. The paper will be evaluated according to the evaluation…

Words 1126 - Pages 5

COMPARE AND CONTRAST ESSAY

BY: EDUVINA MARANO FEBRUARY | 2015 E-Books vs. Paper Books Eduvina Marano Writing and reading are two vital elements in people’s life. Throughout the history, writing has been one of the most significant ways of communication and knowledge sharing. Millions of years ago our ancients used to write on walls and stones, in a way to share their knowledge, stories and what people think were predictions about the future. Since the invention of the paper, many books have been written with the same purposes:…

Words 722 - Pages 3