Haránt Artúr:
CUBES of KNOWLEDGE
„Knowledge is hidden in nature and those who manage to gain it can seize it.”
Four Books on Human Proportion by Albrecht Dürer, 1528. 2024.
Dürer’s Adam and Eve copper engraving inspired the game. The engraving shows the era before the fall of man, when we used to live in harmony with nature. He captured the moment when they accepted the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge from the snake representing Satan. Other symbolic animals can be seen around them.
The shapeless details observed appropriately form a shapely whole. The etchings in the copper-plate and the network of the tree stimulate similar game. The drama of damnation after creation is also alike. The part seceded from the whole and it has been seeking its salvation in order to turn back to the whole.
The history of man is layered like the annual rings of trees.
However, man is a more complex living creature than trees of course. We do not have actual annual rings but what distinguishes us from plants and animals is that we can circuit our own history so that we understand our present. As if we could rip ourselves to be able to retrieve “our annual rings” that have formed our present.
The four temperaments were easily recognised in the four species of animals in Dürer’s engraving for an educated observer of the sixteenth century - according to Erwin Panofsky.
The different amount of body-fluids (blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm) was considered to cause the oscillation of temperaments.
The four classical elements inspired the four temperaments. It is an outdated theory in scientific aspect.
However, it is a pertinent recognition that man’s temper is agile (like fire, air and water) or still (like earth) or nipping (like fire) or blunt (like air, water and earth) or soft (like fire and air) or heavy (like earth/soil and water).
Without modern scientific methods and technology, scientist had to fill the gaps with „poetic” descriptions of nature.
Our facial expressions prove that eyes are not just to see, a mouth is not just to eat or breathe. What has evolved to take something keeps sending signs out.
Frowning brows symbolize the seclusion from the outside world, while raised eyebrows show openness for understanding the world. A smiling mouth also shows openness, but pursed lips seclusion.
Sanguine’s symbol is spring and childhood; its body-fluid is blood; its classical element is air, which is warm and wet.
It shuts itself off from the world but it is open to people. It is active and reacts suddenly to incoming stimuli, doesn’t think. A sanguine doesn’t care about the future it only follows moments. There’s a proverb of rabbits, “they breed like rabbits”.
Choleric’s symbol is summer and adolescence; its body-fluid is yellow bile; its classical element is fire, which is hot and dry.
It shuts itself off from both world and people. It is active, confident, self-aware and purposeful. It doesn’t tolerate opposition. We use the expression “bitter remark” for someone’s hurting manner. It is not accidental, because the flavour of bile is known bitter.
Melancholic’s symbol is autumn and adulthood; Its body fluid is black bile; Its classical element is earth/soil, which is cold and dry.
It is open to the world, but it shuts off itself from people. It is gloomy, pensive, less active temperament. Melancholy remained the most comprehensible of the four classic temperaments. The original Greek expression means ‘melan + kholé’ black bile. Dürer dedicated a very special copper engraving for melancholy.
Phlegmatic’s symbol is winter and old age; its body fluid is phlegm; its classical element is water, which is cold and wet. It is open to the world and people. It is demotivated and controlling is not its characteristic. It let itself drift with the tide. The ox – as it can be controlled easily in spite of its huge strength – is an apt symbol of this temperament.
The box is shaped to imitate a tree section, in which the annual rings resemble a cerebral cortex winding like a labyrinth.
It is a kind of puzzle whose elements can be joined in many ways. If you have ever discovered a face or any recognisable shape in the wood lines and knots, you already know this game. Its purpose is not to find a certain form, but the formsearching itself.
A cube’s surface shows only random wood lines. The real wood lines and knots appear under the engraved graphics on each cube this way every cube is unique like a fingerprint.
The essence of the game is that neither good solution and nor bad solution exist as the puzzle can be solved in many ways.
Tiny imperfections don’t ruin the game but even enrich it.
The cubes may seem to be difficult to put together, but solving the game is rather easy.
It can help that there are annual rings only on the top and bottom of a cube. While grains of wood outlining the mouths and eyes are on the sides of the cube. If you put the mouths on the bottom and the eyes on the top, you can see the result picturing any face of the puzzle.
Joining works by connecting the faces on the cubes at the same horizontal and vertical intersections. That is why the game can be solved in many ways.
The basis of the puzzle is the game being on the sensitive balance between the disharmony and harmony. The joining points are the same but the patterns are different.
The patterns are arranged that human faces could be seen outside and animals inside, behind the face of each temperament the animal is to which it belongs. For example, a rabbit is behind the sanguine man’s face, a cat is behind the choleric man’s face, and so on...
You
can put together the cubes to make a sanguine woman’s face, but doing so behind it a cat-eye ox will be found.
The animal faces, the variable basic patterns – as I mentioned – were inspired by Dürer’ engraving.
Up left the sanguine rabbit can be found; up right the choleric cat; down left the phlegmatic ox; down right the melancholic deer.
Human faces can be devided into women faces that are smoother, while rougher and gnarlier shapes show men faces. Up left sanguine; up right choleric; down left phlegmatic; down right melancholic.
Among the classical elements, fire and air were considered masculine, and water and earth feminine.
Animals on annual rings can be arranged in four ways. These also invoke the animals in Dürer’s engraving: a wise parrot sitting in the Tree of Life, the mouse symbolising weakness at Adam’s foot, the snake around the Tree of Knowledge and the goat symbolising damnation on the top of the hill.
If you look at carefully the annual rings, you can see that the snake crawls into them in a spiral, which breaks in the middle at the parrot.
Symbols on the annual rings are also hidden.
Through four layers, the wing beats of the parrot draws the symbol of the four classical elements. If we are able to understand mythically worded description of nature and not in a scientific way, we can discover interesting things. Man instinctively searched for nature along harmonies. What he found we still use in many cases unto this day.
Mixing patterns is possible besides the basic variations, if you want, you can make Minotaur, cat woman, dee-rabbit man etc… perhaps it is the most interesting part of the game when hidden parts are revealed.
The box also functions as a stand so you can display any image variation you like as a table decoration even changing them every day.
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Copyright © Haránt Artúr 2024
All rights reserved. This publication and game may not be reproduced in any form, in a whole or in part, by electronic or mechanical means without the prior permission of the copyright owner. To request permission, write to the author: juxxxtapoz@gmail.com