Trefoil Knot - Trefoils in Religion and Culture

Trefoils in Religion and Culture

As the simplest nontrivial knot, the trefoil is a common motif in iconography and the visual arts. For example, the common form of the triquetra symbol is a trefoil, as are some versions of the Germanic Valknut.

Trefoil knots
A simple triquetra symbol
A tightly-knotted triquetra
The Germanic Valknut
A metallic Valknut in the shape of a trefoil

In modern art, the woodcut “Knots” by M. C. Escher depicts three trefoil knots whose solid forms are twisted in different ways.

Read more about this topic:  Trefoil Knot

Famous quotes containing the words religion and/or culture:

    Magic is the envelopment and coercion of the objective world by the ego; it is a dynamic subjectivism. Religion is the coercion of the ego by gods and spirits who are objectively conceived beings in control of nature and man.
    Richard Chase (b. 1914)

    Why is it so difficult to see the lesbian—even when she is there, quite plainly, in front of us? In part because she has been “ghosted”Mor made to seem invisible—by culture itself.... Once the lesbian has been defined as ghostly—the better to drain her of any sensual or moral authority—she can then be exorcised.
    Terry Castle, U.S. lesbian author. The Apparitional Lesbian, ch. 1 (1993)