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Classifying African Abstractions |
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Images are the mother of mental activities. The 13th century English word “Image”--probably from the same source as “imitate (“to make a copy of”)--was defined both as a “likeness of something” and “to picture to oneself.”
When the “mental” part was added, the 16th century English definition of “picture” included a figurative “graphical description” and a “visualized conception” (the word “concept” referring to “the act of conceiving”). Hence, "Object Images" were considered to be rough pictorial representations of measurable things. They were subdivided into first and second: things having a visible part in common with or without awareness of their inner aspects; and third, things with Inner Similarities despite being externally unrelated in appearance.
Visual Abstract Images are reproductions of some non-material and non-measurable imagined thing that is symbolically blank. To be Symbolically Blank means the abstraction does not refer to material objects. That "object absence" is equivalent to an abstraction, like Quality, having a "bodiless presence." Quality is a master category word or what I call an "Umbrella Term" because different concepts (each being dealt with uniquely) stand under it--in the way many different chicks hide under the wings of their mother. Abstractions (“to draw away from the physical”) can be thought of as what they are; what they do; and how they appear. Visual Abstract Images are vague ideas of what is not actually present. Hence, they can only be described because, unlike mental images of objects, they have no definite boundaries and cannot be measured. What they do is to both form and represent Beings, Forms (e.g. Numbers), and Qualities of reality, distortions, or fantasy. In addition, Abstractions can convey a direction, as seen in the word "Emotive." How they appear is as adjectives and adverbs. Examples include pleasure/pain, better/worse, beautiful/ugly, interesting/dull, useful/ornamental--each being symbolically blank.
Abstract Non-Images are reproductions of some non-material thing that is not imaginable; that is symbolically blank; and that allows for no mental pictures. One example is “infinite,” covering anything inherently beginning-less, endless, and externally inexhaustible--e.g. space, time, number, quantity, length, breadth, height, depth. Another is the "Soul Intuition" experience which imparts an insight into a problem. A third is the awareness of an invisible part shared in common but with no knowledge of any of its inner aspects. When Ancient Africans said humans are made in the Image of God, that invisible Image is common to all humans but with no one knowing the inner aspects of the Image. |
