Aureola crown, modified by an equally simple idea of the emanation of light from the head of a superior being, or by the meteorological phenomenon of a halo. The probability is that all later associations with the symbol refer back to an early astrological origin (compare Mithras), the person so glorified being identified with the sun and represented in the sun's image; so the aureole is the "Hvareno" of Mazdaism. From this early astrological use, the form of "glory" or "nimbus" has been adapted or inherited under new beliefs. A "mandorla" is a vesica piscis shaped aureola which surrounds the figures
What Is Art? "vagueness, mysteriousness, obscurity and inaccessibility to the masses". Tolstoy lambastes such works, insisting that art can and should be comprehensible to everyone. Having emphasised that art has a function in the improvement of humanity - capable of expressing man’s best sentiment - he finds it offensive that artists should be so wilfully and arrogantly abstruse. One criticism Tolstoy levels against art is that at some point it "ceased to be sincere and became artificial and cerebral", leading to the creation of millions of works of technical brilliance but few of honourable sentiment. Tolstoy outlines four common markers of bad art: