Why shape of heart

You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service. Skip to Main Content Skip to Search. News Corp is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content and other products and services. Dow Jones. According to this theory, the heart shape may have been born when artists and scientists from the Middle Ages attempted to draw representations of ancient medical texts.

In the 14th century, for example, the Italian physicist Guido da Vigevano made a series of anatomical drawings featuring a heart that closely resembles the one described by Aristotle. Since the human heart has long been associated with emotion and pleasure, the shape was eventually co-opted as a symbol of romance and medieval courtly love. It grew especially popular during the Renaissance , when it was used in religious art depicting the Sacred Heart of Christ and as one of the four suits in playing cards.

Up until the late 14th century, the heart was usually shown upside down. This tradition changed in the first half of the 15th century. Another change happened during this time, which shaped the heart symbol as we know it today.

The dent on its base started to appear. At first, the dent was small, and it gradually began to expand. Since the late 15th century the dented red heart symbol was a common sight, and it was even used on playing cards. Read another story from us: Vinegar Valentines were insult cards that helped to promote literacy among the lower classes in 19th century Britain. As an already established symbol of love, in the 19th century, the heart began to appear on St.

The origin of the heart shape ideograph as a symbol of love. Shortly after its publication, the scalloped heart began appearing in other works of visual art and in tapestries. Vinken cites another example that can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: a small 14th-century oak coffer depicting Frau Minne, the German goddess of love, aiming an arrow at a young man. In the Middle Ages, heart-shaped books were also popular, corresponding with the idea of the heart as a place of memory.

So, by that point, the heart had taken its shape and had come to mean love — just in time for the organ to lose some of its symbolic importance in the human body, as the popular understanding of medicine evolved. The idea of the heart as the spot where feeling was literally recorded lost some of its power. Correction: The original version of this article misstated the name of the museum that houses 14th-century enamel with heart shapes.

Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia. By Olivia B. But why? Le Roman de la Poire circa , the first illustration of a heart in Europe not in an anatomical textbook.