Home Coated tongue A clock tattoo is a symbol of eternity and inevitability, what else will he tell you about. Hourglass

Coated tongue

A clock tattoo is a symbol of eternity and inevitability, what else will he tell you about. Hourglass

I was a particle of this sand
a particle of an endless stream,
running tirelessly
between two huge glass cones,
and I liked the life of sand,
countless grains of sand
with their common and non-common fate,
their feasts
their holidays and everyday life,
their passions
their high impulses,
all the pathos of their good intentions.

Yuri Levitansky. 1984. Excerpt fully

Determining the place and time of birth of the sand chronometer is an impossible task. Some people bet on the terribly ancient Chinese, others on the no less ancient Egyptians. The Greeks were known as active users of hourglasses.
Probably, like the sunglass, the hourglass was invented more than once and by many. At the same time, researchers emphasize the secondary nature of the hourglass in relation to the sunglass. This is natural, because sundials, in general, have always existed, you just had to look at them, and hourglasses needed the invention of glass.

ADurer. St. Jerome in his cell

Hourglass - indispensable Reaper-Death attribute

ADurer. Knight and Death

Johann Jakob Scheuchzer. Physica sacra, 4 Volumes, Augsburg und Ulm. 1731

Chimes at the Old Town Hall

Vanitas (lit. vanity, vanity) - this is the name of the genre of painting, the compositional center of which is traditionally an hourglass and symbols that have a similar semiotic meaning: a human skull and a withered flower. Allegorical still lifes were intended to remind us of the transience of life, the futility of pleasures and the inevitability of death.

Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne. Ex minimis patet ipse Deus (God is revealed in the smallest work of his creation), Middelburgh. 1623

Cornelis Norbertus

David Bailey. l Vanitas Still-life with Portrait -Still-life with Negro. 1650

Jan Stommes

Johann Zoffany

LeidenMasterCa. 1635. Hamburg Kunsthalle

Raphael Sadele. After Martin de Vos. 1590

William Michael Harnett. Memento mori. 1878

Gerrit Dou

Simon Renard de Saint-Andre

Kronborg. Allegorie des Memento mori. 1576.am Hauptportal des Schlosses

As a symbol of death and the brevity of earthly existence, the image of an hourglass is often found on gravestones and monuments XVI-XVIII centuries It is believed that there was a tradition of placing an hourglass in the coffin of the deceased. An hourglass lying on its side means that time has stopped for the deceased. An hourglass with wings symbolizes the rapid flight of time...

La Morte di Ruginello pannello di sinistra, sec. XVII I

Memento mori. Skeleton in a shroud sitting on a tomb. Western Europe, France, 1547, Ivory. Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris

Derbent. Kirkhlyar Cemetery

Necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery

Hourglass is an attribute Saturn .

Janus , which is logical, I also wore a watch

The hourglass is present as one of the aspects of ouroboros. in the alchemist's laboratory .

"In my beginning lies my end"

Two triangles touching their vertices - essence and substance, forma and materia, spirit and soul, sulfur and mercury, stable and changeable, spiritual strength and bodily existence. The symbolizing elements are: fire (pointing up), water (pointing down). Two interlocking triangles are a union of opposites that become liquid fire or fiery water.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

0. Adrian van Ostade

David Teniers the Younger. 1610

Jacques Louis Perrier

Pietro Longhi

The form of Damarin - the drum of Shiva from which Sanskrit was created and which symbolizes duality Samsara also resembles an hourglass.

Shiva statue in Bangalore, capital of Karnataka state

Shiva statue in Murdeshwar

Ornament , containing touching triangles, can be found in many cultures on all continents, the symbol of vertically arranged pairs of triangles touching at the corners is typical of the traditional culture of America. In the North American tradition, it is an image of a thunderbird, or the scalp of an enemy, and in the South American tradition, it is the spirit of the jungle. In the symbolism of textile patterns of the African Zulu tribe, triangles with converging angles represent married man(if they are related parties - married woman). In Hinduism, it is a sign of the duality of shakta and shakti. Plato has a complete balance of forces.
In general, for many peoples, a triangle symbolizes dynamics, and two triangles touching at their vertices symbolize the dynamics of transition and return. Body-soul, matter-spirit, female-male, earth-sky, life-death etc.

Alaska, Great Lakes, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, Pueblo, Bakairi

Africa

India

Assyro-Babylonian ornament

Ireland

Pamir, an example of Tajik carving

Vologda

Round dance of death on inside dishes. Sanctuary of Monte d'Accoddi, Sassari. Around 4000 BC.

Hourglass in the Reflection Chamber (Black Cell) Masons:

The skull is a symbol of death, the frailty of all things. The Rooster foretells the imminent dawn, the awakening of dormant energy to new activity and the victory of the forces of Light over the forces of Darkness. The hourglass and the scythe remind of the eternal continuity of life, where some forms of existence decompose, but at the same time pass into others...

The symbolism of the hourglass has been widely used and sea pirates .

In addition, the hourglass shape corresponds to analemma - a curve connecting a number of successive positions of the central star of a planetary system in the sky of one of the planets of this system at the same time during the year.

Temple of Zeus, Athens

What is the image of time in world culture? What are the traditional symbolic meanings of clocks, including hourglasses, in ancient mythology and Christianity? How did the symbolism of the image of a watch develop in painting and applied art of modern times?

What does the hourglass symbolize? Book of Symbols

The symbolism of watches in culture appeared, obviously, immediately after their invention. Now it is difficult to say exactly when this happened. Some believe that their first creators were the ancient Chinese, others give the palm to the Egyptians or Assyrian-Babylonians. It is believed that At first there was a water clock (clepsydra), and only after that - sand and sun clocks. It is known for sure that the ancient Greeks, even in the pre-classical period of their development, actively used all three types of chronometers, but the Romans did not know hourglasses.

Before the era of clocks, people determined time by changes in nature. To do this, they noted the cycles in the changing seasons, studied the movements of the moon, the sun, stars, plants and the behavior of animals. For example, the aborigines of the Far North in ancient times determined time using a description life cycles walruses, wild deer and schools of salmon (that’s what they said: the time the salmon arrived; when the deer left, and so on). For tribes living in close relationships with the outside world, this was natural. Their very reality testified that their life, like the existence of everything around, does not stand still, but somehow moves, changes and steadily changes every person.

Any creature gradually goes through its own path leading from birth to death. Thus, time as a certain world essence was comprehended by people a very long time ago.

First of all, this is reflected in mythology

Myths about the creation of the world, which were necessarily composed by all peoples without exception, tell how at the beginning of time, land was separated from water, light from darkness, top (Heaven) and bottom (Earth) and time appeared. Thus, the appearance of time in the world mythological tradition signifies one of the acts of the birth of the Cosmos from Chaos, and constant changes are an obligatory component of existence itself.

One of the cosmogonic myths of the ancient Greeks tells that during the period of initial creation, Chaos gave birth from itself to the great darkness (Erebus) and night (Nyuktu). These elements entered into a marriage, which culminated in the appearance of light (Ether) and day (Hemera). Since then, night and day began to replace each other on earth, that is, a day arose - the first time cycles. And after the first atrocity in the world committed by Kron (he castrated and overthrew his father Uranus), Nyukta gave birth to a whole host of different unpleasant and simply terrible gods from Chaos, including Thanatos - death. This is how frailty appeared, which became the law of existence. If before that everything in the Cosmos gravitated toward eternity, then after the appearance of Thanatos, almost all creations acquired a temporary status. Even the gods (immortal beings) had their own fate, which doomed them to oblivion and disappearance at a certain time.

In different mythologies and religions, time is not always characterized in the same way. It may be what is called eternity, sometimes seen as changing cycles, or thought of as linear. Eternity reigns in the palaces of the gods, who, unlike mortals, are free from old age and death. But even their eternity (paradox!) is a change in cycles.

Ancient mythology talks about changes in pantheons, which actually ensure the alternation of world cycles: golden, silver, copper, iron ages.
The basis of the worldview of Buddhism lies the doctrine of the change of kalpas. Kalpas are worlds inside the Wheel of Samsara, the eternal rebirth of existence. Along with each world, the gods are reborn. Any kalpa is born, develops and dies. It exists for millions of years, and then it is sure to be replaced by another. On earth for mortals this is expressed in the alternation of seasons, years, generations, etc.
Indians of Pre-Columbian Central America represented time in the form of a great spiral, in the circles of which everything exists and changes.
Old Russian tradition first reflected the concepts of linear time in chronicles. These historical texts they wrote descriptions “by years” (years) from the creation of the world, and not by the cycles of the reign of one or another ruler (as the authors of foreign chronicles did).

Time has always been personified in the images of the first great and powerful gods - its lords and servants at the same time:

among the Egyptians it was Nekhebkau;

among the Greeks Kronos (Chronos);

among the Romans Saturn and two-faced Janus(one of his faces looks into the past, the other into the future);

in ancient Iran among fire worshipers - Zervan;

in India - Kala;

the Chinese have Tai-sui;

in Tibet - Lhamo.

Sometimes they talked about their benevolence towards people (Janus, for example, was called the “good creator”), but more often these gods were feared, since they saw a murderous element in them. In particular, the Hellenes considered Kronos cunning and ruthless. And really, what good can you expect from someone who devoured his own children?

Wheel of Samsara

The appearance of time in the world mythological tradition signifies one of the acts of the birth of the Cosmos from Chaos.

Adolphe-William Bouguereau "Night". Nikta, goddess of the night, 1883

EVEN THE GODS (IMMORTAL BEINGS) HAD THEIR OWN FATE, WHICH DOOMED THEM TO OBLIGATION AND DISAPPEARANCE AT A CERTAIN TIME.

Jean-Fancois Destry "The Triumph of Time and Truth", 1773

In Roman mythology, Kronos (Chronos - "time") is known as Saturn - a symbol of inexorable time.

Clocks as a symbol of everything related to the image of time

It is difficult to say how an object measuring certain periods of time was looked at at the time the clepsydra was used. Information about this simply has not survived. However, the world-famous proverb that “a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then” testifies: Already in ancient times, watches became a sign of the fluidity of life, the frailty of existence. At the same time, it is also a generally recognized symbol of eternity..

The image of endless cyclicality is especially eloquently embodied in the hourglass. First of all - in their appearance. This time measuring instrument consists of two glass flasks connected by a narrow neck. It is into it that sand spills from the upper bubble into the lower one in a certain number of minutes - from half a minute to a full hour (in maritime affairs, even four-hour “flasks” were used, as they were called). In its appearance, an hourglass resembles a figure eight: two spheres flowing into each other. This number is associated with the concepts of “fullness of being”, “beginning of a new cycle”, “Earth”, “three-dimensionality”. Lying on its side, the number eight is still in Ancient Egypt meant infinity. The very fact that, after the sand flows downwards, the clock must be turned over, once again emphasized the cyclical nature of life, symbolizing, as it were, some new turn in the world sphere.

When did an innovative type of watch appear in culture - dial mechanical, - the meaning of the image remains the same. The first clocks with hands were always round, which outwardly linked their perception with spherical symbolism. And the division of the dial into parts showing hours, minutes and seconds, and the continuous movement of the hands in a circle emphasized old idea cyclic infinity.

In general, over time, a certain set of allegorical meanings of the image of a clock has developed:

as a sign of frailty, mortality and death;
time (expired, inexorably passing, etc.), the rapid passage of time;
as cycles of destruction and creation (life and death);
as connections between Heaven and Earth, inverse relationships between the Upper and Lower worlds (as evidenced by the turning of the clock);
The hourglass is the personification of the figure eight of infinity and the duality of the world.

POSITIONED ON YOUR SIDE, THE NUMBER EIGHT MEANED INFINITY IN ANCIENT EGYPT.

Tower mechanical watches with automatic movement from the 16th century

Christian culture

perceived almost all of the listed symbolic perceptions of the clock and developed them in her own way. In particular, for each hour of the day the Church has assigned the performance of certain psalms and prayers, various readings from the Bible and other holy books. Any Christian service consists of certain parts, also tied to time. The Orthodox canon of worship is described in detail in a specially compiled book called "Book of Hours". It contains various kinds of liturgical texts that are read at one time or another of the day. One of the varieties of Christian temple even has the name “chapel”. This is a religious building without an altar, but with all the other necessary attributes that allow you to spend hours there - church services.

Some Christian ascetic saints are depicted with an hourglass in their hands or nearby. This emphasizes the idea of bodily finitude human life and the inevitability of dormition and the responsibility of the soul before the Lord. Most famous examples This is the iconographic images of Mary Magdalene and St. Ambrose, St. Jerome.

Another aspect of the cultural Christian interpretation of the image of a clock appeared in the art of the late European Middle Ages - in the 14th century. It was during this period that the image of death in the form of a Gloomy Priest or an ominous skeleton that appears next to people in moments of their enjoyment of life. The Grim Reaper is usually dressed in a monk's black robe with a hood, and holds a scythe and often an hourglass in his hands. The scythe is his weapon for killing people, and the clock says that the moment of their death has come, their time has expired. The hourglass in the knuckles of the skeletons in the paintings of A. Durer “The Knight and Death”, G.B. has the same meaning. Green's "The Three Ages of Woman", an unknown artist XV from the Dutch city of Zwolle, "The Lady and Death", on numerous lithographs and engravings of this period.

For various painters, starting from the medieval era, clocks have become a sign of keeping time. They used this image to depict complex ideas:

the present as a moment between the past and what is replacing it in a continuous stream;
fragility and transience of life;
dualistic alternation of Space and Chaos, life and death;
the inexorability and fragility of time.

The hourglass was one of the constant elements in the paintings of the genre Vanitas (translated from Latin vanity, vanity). Their meaning coincided with two other symbols - a skull and a withered flower. Such still life allegories were intended to remind of the transience of life, inevitable death and the futility of pleasures. At the same time, hourglasses appeared on canvases depicting alchemist laboratories (such subjects came into fashion in the 16th century) by P. Bruegel the Elder, A. van Ostade, J.L. Perrier et al.

The hourglass is a popular and fairly unambiguous symbol. Even Windows uses the hourglass image as a system busy indicator. This image has also become part of tattoo culture. Therefore, let us explain the meaning of the hourglass tattoo.

Time is like sand

Speaking about what an hourglass tattoo means, an association arises with the expiration of time, the desire to accomplish as much as possible in the time allotted to us by fate.

Time is the most valuable currency, because it is with it that we often pay for wrong decisions, the fear of committing a serious act, or changing our lives. With time you have to pay for excessive idleness, for meaningless fuss. No one can know how many years fate has measured out for each of us, and the understanding that we need to appreciate every moment brings a person closer to happiness.

So, what does an hourglass tattoo mean?

Transience of life. Each of us probably sooner or later had to remember some event from the past and catch ourselves thinking that it happened several years ago, but it seems like yesterday. At such moments, a person begins to think about how quickly his life actually flows. An hourglass tattoo on the hand, for example, can serve as a kind of reminder that a person is not eternal. Even if we believe in reincarnation, our current incarnation is still mortal, and no one can know what the next incarnation will be. Therefore, it is worth taking full advantage of all the opportunities that this life promises us.
The value of every moment. Each grain of sand is like one moment of our life, and these grains of sand fall at the same speed. Although it seems that happy moments pass too quickly, and a moment of sadness lasts forever, this is not so, every moment of life is equally valuable. Moments of sadness give us food for thought, losses allow us to draw important conclusions.
The pointlessness of vanity. The meaning of an hourglass tattoo often comes down to the fact that you shouldn't waste time on things that aren't really important. A person who has chosen such a tattoo periodically wonders what he is spending his life on, whether he really needs this.
Fatalism. An hourglass tattoo with a skull can indicate such an outlook on life. Skull in in this case symbolizes death, and the clock - continuous flow time, inevitably leading to death. That is, a person does not see any special meaning in his existence, because the result is still the same.

A tattoo depicting an hourglass in any case speaks of the passage of time in our lives. But everyone decides for themselves exactly how to perceive it - to appreciate every moment or to give up and just go with the flow.

Subjects and styles

Most often, an hourglass is depicted with a minimum number of additional decorative elements. The watch bowls can be made in the shape of hearts or figure eights - they can be decorated with flowers, flames, butterflies or feathers. Sometimes you can see photos of hourglass tattoos along with portraits. There are images of watches with wings, which usually indicate that a person is trying to take life lightly. If an owl is adjacent to an hourglass tattoo, this means that the owner of the work is trying to manage his time wisely. When it comes to depicting animals with watches, it is worth considering the symbolism that they carry.

Clocks are one of my favorite themes. He is rebellious, defiant, bright. A tattoo made in this style speaks of expressiveness and determination. Trash polka is chosen by self-sufficient people who do not care about the opinions of others, they despise banality and social conventions. A tattoo with an hourglass made in this style indicates that a person will manage his own life, without looking at other people’s opinions.

A watercolor hourglass will also look very bright. This style is suitable for people who want to paint their life with bright colors. Watercolor works look gentle and airy, indicating that the owner of the tattoo wants to achieve harmony with himself and with the world, live for his own pleasure and enjoy every moment. Using more muted colors may mean that a person is striving for a calm and measured life.
An hourglass tattoo on the leg looks quite harmonious. You can also often find such tattoos on the shoulder or forearm. By the way, these places are practically painless; most masters consider them the most convenient for work.

As for the sketch, naturally, an original drawing created especially for you outperforms a picture found on the Internet. But in any case, you should be guided only by your own desire.

Yuri Levitansky. 1984. Excerpt fully

ADurer. St. Jerome in his cell

Hourglass - indispensable Reaper-Death attribute

ADurer. Knight and Death

Johann Jakob Scheuchzer. Physica sacra, 4 Volumes, Augsburg und Ulm. 1731

Chimes at the Old Town Hall

Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne. Ex minimis patet ipse Deus (God is revealed in the smallest work of his creation), Middelburgh. 1623

Cornelis Norbertus

David Bailey. l Vanitas Still-life with Portrait -Still-life with Negro. 1650

Jan Stommes

Johann Zoffany

LeidenMasterCa. 1635. Hamburg Kunsthalle

Raphael Sadele. After Martin de Vos. 1590

William Michael Harnett. Memento mori. 1878

Gerrit Dou

Simon Renard de Saint-Andre

Kronborg. Allegorie des Memento mori. 1576.am Hauptportal des Schlosses

La Morte di Ruginello pannello di sinistra, sec. XVII I

Memento mori. Skeleton in a shroud sitting on a tomb. Western Europe, France, 1547, Ivory. Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris

Derbent. Kirkhlyar Cemetery

Necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery

Hourglass is an attribute Saturn .

Janus , which is logical, I also wore a watch

The hourglass is present as one of the aspects of ouroboros. in the alchemist's laboratory .

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

0. Adrian van Ostade

David Teniers the Younger. 1610

Jacques Louis Perrier

Pietro Longhi

The form of Damarin - the drum of Shiva from which Sanskrit was created and which symbolizes duality Samsara also resembles an hourglass.

Shiva statue in Bangalore, capital of Karnataka state

Shiva statue in Murdeshwar

Ornament , containing touching triangles, can be found in many cultures on all continents, the symbol of vertically arranged pairs of triangles touching at the corners is typical of the traditional culture of America. In the North American tradition, it is an image of a thunderbird, or the scalp of an enemy, and in the South American tradition, it is the spirit of the jungle. In the symbolism of textile ornaments of the African Zulu tribe, triangles with converging angles indicate a married man (if they are conjugate sides, a married woman). In Hinduism, it is a sign of the duality of shakta and shakti. Plato has a complete balance of forces.
In general, for many peoples, a triangle symbolizes dynamics, and two triangles touching at their vertices symbolize the dynamics of transition and return. Body-soul, matter-spirit, female-male, earth-sky, life-death etc.

Alaska, Great Lakes, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, Pueblo, Bakairi

Africa

India

Assyro-Babylonian ornament

Ireland

Pamir, an example of Tajik carving

Vologda

Round dance of death on the inside of the dish. Sanctuary of Monte d'Accoddi, Sassari. Around 4000 BC.

Hourglass in the Reflection Chamber (Black Cell) Masons:

The symbolism of the hourglass has been widely used and sea pirates .