Kunt Ernő szerk.: Kép-hagyomány – Nép-hagyomány (Miskolc, 1990)

I. RÉSZTANULMÁNYOK - Lyubomir Mikov: Rituális emberábrázolás - Jel: jelkép: művészi hasonmás

ANTHROPOMORPHIC RITUAL PLASTIC ART SIGN : SYMBOL : ARTISTIC IMAGE LYUBOMIR MIKOV Anthropomorphic plastic art is a basic and typical component in the structure of a number of folkloric ritual formations, characteristic of almost all Indo-European ethnic and cultural traditions. Particularly indicative in this respect are the folkloric systems of the Slav ethnic and cultural heritage, whose documenting in the 19th century has continued actively to this day. In the folkloric systems of the Slav ethnic and cultural traditions anthropomorphic ritual attributes are very varied both from a formal (technological-construction) and from a functional-semantic point of view. Parallel with this, however, this type of attributes are essentially identical and possess universal sign values as a result of the semiotic identity and functional universality typical of the ritual structures comprising them. It is this fact that has offered a possibility for typologization of the anthropomorphic plastic images, as well as for analysis of their functional and semantic dimensions along the lines of a most far-reaching generalization.

1 Such is in fact the syntagmatic or linear explication of anthropomorphic ritual plastic art in the context of the categories: sign - relation - structure - system - culture. On the other hand, the sign character of anthropomorphic ritual plastic art is historically determined. To a great extent this is due to the organic link between this kind of image and the custom, which is not only a normative means of regulating individual and mass behaviour, but also a historically changing principle of tradition.

2 This is why, being representatives of the plastic component in the ritual, anthropomorphic images have undergone a change in their sign function as a result of the universal, law-governed and historically inevitable change in the principle of preception, reproduction and dissemination of the respective ritual structure, of its reproducible model, of the ritual system as a whole and of the folkloric culture in general.

3 The process of perception, reproduction and dissemination of the anthropomorphic ritual images is in fact a process of their social interpretation. At a synchronous level this means that they are the product of human activity that is differentiated according to sex and social status, that they comprise social information, that they are the tools for different social operations, being at the same time the basic and the most representative attributive component in the structure of the ritual and festive formations containing them. Their functioning is aimed above all at stimulating and guaranteeing the welfare of the socium, at universalization of the clan and family model and at symbolization of social relations and social being. In a diachronous plan this would mean that they satisfied definite social needs of several generations, that they were the inherited product of social experience, that they became a model for the perception, reproduction and dissemination of social information, and that in the long run they gained prominence as a socially meaningful sign expresion of transition and creation. The psychological interpretation of the anthropomorphic plastic images, both in