Rhombi
You might be surprised to know that the most common ornamental motif of the Russian colonial project is a polygon shaped like the pubic zone: the unassuming rhombus. Some might call it a diamond, but diamonds are preferably upright; more precise is the word "lozenge", but since cough drops were given the lozenge shape in the 19th century, that word is more likely to evoke a cruel candy the doctor gives you than a geometrical shape. In Russian, it's uncontroversially romb [ромб], so let's follow the Slavs. It was they, after all, who plastered this symbol on fences and walls throughout their empire, likely unaware that it stood for the loins of Mother Earth.
In the world of ornamentation, it's a matter of course that form has been divorced from meaning. There are few people, we must admit, who stare at the patterns on a fence and question their deeper significance - to the average passerby, these are just shapes to look pretty, semantic baggage be damned. But trace a shape through the centuries and you can uncover a time when such ignorance was rare. The ancient Slavs, we can be sure, were quite aware that the rhombi they carved and embroidered had a certain power. The romb was a symbol of fertility and protection, and it was used with intention.
The connection to female anatomy doesn't need more explication, but the rhombus' other symbolisms should better be spelled out. The shape's connection to a sown field, or zaseyannoe polye [засеянное поле] is more explicit when you see it divided into fours with a dot in each plot - this is how the romb was commonly drawn in the past. It also helps to imagine the squareness of a field seen from a skewed perspective. The next step, between a field and a female, harvest and childbirth, fertility and fertility, is so commonly made in studies of symbolism that the point hardly needs to be repeated.
As symbols tend to do, the rhombus eventually took on another layer of meaning - it became a talisman of protection. In your mind's eye, make the four sides of a rhombus the four walls of a home. As a foundation keeps out cold, strangers, evil and the unwanted, so does the rhombus divide an enclosed space, safe and quantified, from the unknowable expanse of infinity. Even without such philosophizing, the shape has an assuring rigidity to it, and as it came to be used more often in architecture, it's probable that the amateur designers, summoning it with planks on fences or bricks in walls, had already began to lose touch with its history. To them, it might just be a good shape for keeping fence posts together, or a convenient way to organize the cladding outside a home.
By the time the rhombus arrives in 21st century Almaty, it's more meme than meaningful. People need something to break up the monotony of a blank surface, so they copy the symbol from their neighbor down the street. A fencemaker has seen rhombus-studded fences all his life, and assumes that's just how they're done. The ornament is no longer something consciously evocative but something copied and pasted without thought. The stamp of Mother Earth, now just a design template in a catalog.
In the world of ornamentation, it's a matter of course that form has been divorced from meaning. There are few people, we must admit, who stare at the patterns on a fence and question their deeper significance - to the average passerby, these are just shapes to look pretty, semantic baggage be damned. But trace a shape through the centuries and you can uncover a time when such ignorance was rare. The ancient Slavs, we can be sure, were quite aware that the rhombi they carved and embroidered had a certain power. The romb was a symbol of fertility and protection, and it was used with intention.
The connection to female anatomy doesn't need more explication, but the rhombus' other symbolisms should better be spelled out. The shape's connection to a sown field, or zaseyannoe polye [засеянное поле] is more explicit when you see it divided into fours with a dot in each plot - this is how the romb was commonly drawn in the past. It also helps to imagine the squareness of a field seen from a skewed perspective. The next step, between a field and a female, harvest and childbirth, fertility and fertility, is so commonly made in studies of symbolism that the point hardly needs to be repeated.
As symbols tend to do, the rhombus eventually took on another layer of meaning - it became a talisman of protection. In your mind's eye, make the four sides of a rhombus the four walls of a home. As a foundation keeps out cold, strangers, evil and the unwanted, so does the rhombus divide an enclosed space, safe and quantified, from the unknowable expanse of infinity. Even without such philosophizing, the shape has an assuring rigidity to it, and as it came to be used more often in architecture, it's probable that the amateur designers, summoning it with planks on fences or bricks in walls, had already began to lose touch with its history. To them, it might just be a good shape for keeping fence posts together, or a convenient way to organize the cladding outside a home.
By the time the rhombus arrives in 21st century Almaty, it's more meme than meaningful. People need something to break up the monotony of a blank surface, so they copy the symbol from their neighbor down the street. A fencemaker has seen rhombus-studded fences all his life, and assumes that's just how they're done. The ornament is no longer something consciously evocative but something copied and pasted without thought. The stamp of Mother Earth, now just a design template in a catalog.
