The Book of Symbols 2...

Fog

This monumental Japanese painting- it is 260 feet long- invites us into the world of fog. Studying it from right to left, in the tradition of Japanese scroll viewing, we move from forbidding blackness through a somber middle ground to delicate tracery and translucency to what finally appears to be hazy light. The symbolism of fog is just as variable.

The darkest images arose in Scandinavia, where Niflheim, a mythical wasteland of freezing mist and fog populated by monsters, also included the realm of the dead (Orchard, 118). "[F]og in my throat" was Robert Browning's metaphor for approaching death (in Prospice). Fog may arise from the work of demonic beings in fairy tales or surround Shakespear's witches, who comment on the "fog and filthy air" (Macbeth 1.1.16). In Asian legend, it may represent strange moods in which spirits appear (Biedermann, 139). Widely, through, fog is taken to represent confusion, uncertainty, indefiniteness, a state between the real and the unreal. Here it is opposed to the brilliant light of certainty.


While fog seems vaporous, we feel it, because it is formed by the condensation of very small water droplets around microscopic dust particles in the air. Fog limits horizontal vision. Less dense, it is called haze or mist. Unlike clouds, its base is on or near the ground and its symbolism is associated not with the sky, but with the earth realm. Sometimes the fog is seen as unfolding, blanketing. T.S.Eliot imagined fog as a yellow cat that "rubs its back upon the window pane" and finally "curled once about the house and fell asleep" (Eliot, 4 ). Contemporary poet Nan Hunt refers to fog as, "The mummy wrap of soft white/ that hints of a resurrection."

Fog is not favorable to direct action. Ships, planes, and fast-moving humans are delayed or stopped. A slower, more cautious awareness arises. Symbolically, the world of clear rational thought gives way to dreaminess, ambiguity, a kind of knowing that is more nuanced, less absolute. This knowing is perhaps more valued in the East than in the West. Zen sage Keizan Zenji puts it :

Though clear waters range to the vast

blue autumn sky. How can they compare with 

the hazy moon on a spring night!

Most people want to have pure clarity,

But sweep as you will, you cannot empty 

the mind.

Maezumi, iii

Fog is the medium in which the elements of a classic Japanese nature study are obscured, and materialize. Forest, Senju Hiroshi, fusuma (sling door) painting. 2001. 

~Bella