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Volume 32, Number 4, pages 551-568 (2021)
https://doi.org/10.26830/symmetry_2021_4_551
SYMMETRY AND GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY – FOLK BRIDAL APRONS OF WESTERN THRACE, GREECE
Anna Hatziyiannaki*
* New Media Art, 120 Char. Trikoupi, Athens 11472, Greece.
E-mail: annahatz01@yahoo.gr
Abstract: The focus of this article is the ornate woven aprons of the folk bridal costume in the area of Soufli, a town in Western Thrace (Greece). The methodology of approach is interdisciplinary, as ethnology and Gestalt psychology meet art history and the theory of Symmetry. The complexity of the geometric motifs and their relations are analysed using the symmetry principles to reveal overt and covert patterns. With the simultaneous application of Gestalt psychology’s laws, we see revealed among the covert patterns a schematic version of the Tree of Life. In the same way we are also able to formulate a hypothesis of the patterns' chronological order of creation. Finally, it will be shown that common feature that governs overt and covert patterns here is multiple symmetries. It is well documented through ethnological bibliographies that the creation of symmetrical decorative compositions is an archetypal human tendency.
Keywords: Soufli; pre-industrial traditional civilization; folk art; woven patterns; geometrical symmetry; laws of Gestalt psychology; heraldic pattern; mnemonic model; Tree of Life.
References:
Boas, F. (1927) Primitive Art, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Guillaume, P. (1979) La Psychologie de la Forme, Paris: Flammarion.
Jablan, S. (1995) Theory of Symmetry and Ornament, Belgrade: Mathematical Institute.
Koffka, K. (1935) Principles of Gestalt Psychology, London: Lund Humphries.
Kyriakidou-Nestoros, A. (1983) Ta Ifanta tis Makedonias kai tis Thrakis, 2nd ed., [1st ed. 1965], Athens: EOMMEX.
Todorovic, D. (2008) Gestalt principles, Scholarpedia, 3, 12, 5345. https://doi.org/10.4249/scholarpedia.5345
Washburn, K.D. (1986) “Pattern symmetry and colored repetition in cultural contexts”, In: Hargittai, I., ed. Symmetry: Unifying Human Understanding, New York: Pergamon Press, 767–781. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-033986-3.50054-9
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