Human body

The human body and its forms, members, organs and characteristics, appear continually in symbolism.

This class of symbols is among the most explicitly self-referring when its visual imagery or other expression is conventional. In symbolism, humans appear as one kind of embodied being. Other physical beings present as symbols are the terrestrial fauna; birds, beasts and insects, and types of the aquatic forms of life. However, the range of symbols employing the human body and aspects of its vital physical existence uniquely extends to its economic, and social, and physical life. This includes trades and professions and social or hierarchical positions and their corresponding behaviours.