Thursday, January 19, 2012

Truthiness

In Logo Veritas
In my new job I noticed a certificate which attests that my employer is ISO compliant.  I was struck by this little cartouche, filled with stylized forms like so many hieroglyphs:  a torch, a mirror, scales, a ship, the caduceus, a cock, a nekkid woman....

Long-time readers will recognize that almost every symbol in this logo has been covered by LoS at some time or another.  Here's the Bureau Veritas description: 

Bureau Veritas was established in 1828 “to seek out the truth and tell it without fear or favor.” The allegorical figure of Truth, represented by a woman emerging from a well, was chosen as the logo.

The Bureau Veritas emblem shows a young woman seated on the edge of a well with her arms raised. In her right hand is a torch, in her left a mirror. Her left foot rests on a globe.

On the ground are a pair of scales, Mercury’s wand (a caduceus), and a rooster with its eyes raised towards the woman. The horizon shows a three-masted vessel, sails billowing, passing across a bay.

They've got a nifty lil' flash animation to illustrate.

Amateur symbologists and Illuminist killers are likely to blow a nut over this one.  Lucifer clearly has had his filthy paws all over it.  I likes it, me.  We've already discussed the mirror as symbol of truth in Debia's allegorical painting L'Arbre de la Liberté.  A woman with a hand mirror, Venus, is evoked in the title of another post, yet for some reason we never actually discuss the mirror!  Incidentally, that post continues to be one of the top three (ususally second but currently fourth) posts on LoS by number of views.  The title stems from the belief that the Venus symbol, the symbol of Woman (♀) represents a hand mirror.  Whether when associated with Venus the miror represents an appreciation of beauty and/or healthy self-love, vanity and narcissism, or truth, is question whose answer eludes me.  But the mirror doesn't lie and the answers we find there may be unsettling.  Unless you're an ageless goddess, eternal and erotic.  Or ISO compliant.  Could the woman with the hand mirror represent Venus, whose eponymous plant was called in it's dawn aspect Lucifer, the light-bringer.  Light of course representing....Truth?  And you thought that Luciferian Illuminati talk was just me being glib (I was). 

Formed in June 1828 in Antwerp by underwriters Alexandre Delehaye and Louis van den Broek, and insurance broker, Auguste Morel, the Bureau Veritas name was adopted in 1829. This included the adoption of the figure of Truth logo designed by Achille Deveria.

Déveria's portfolio, by the way, contained a heavy swath of erotic engravings and watercolers.  An acolyte of venus, perhaps.

I'd like to see the unmodified original logo if anyone digs up a copy.  As it says above, it pictured a naked woman climbing out of a well.  They don't make logos like they used to!

Compare it, if you will, to the "macaron" of the BIPM.:scantily clad woman, Mercury's caudceus, globe.  Cool stuff....

4 comments:

  1. Hey, D -- Fixed that last link. Love to see the original logo if it surfaces!

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  2. The link was broken? Oops. I'd love to see the original too, I imagine it's weirder and more detailed....kind of like the Starbuck's logo becoming simpler, more stylized. Logos seem to be getting more and more devoid of any overt reference. This may be due to people seeing Satanic and/or Illuminist symbols everywhere....a moon, a goat a star can be interpreted to be something sinister, so they go with something as banal as possible. You don't see the Proctor and Gamble moon and stars anymore, for example. You recall that....it really had a negative effect on their company.

    Also, you can check out the Carcassonne legend here: http://lawsofsilence.blogspot.com/2011/01/woman.html (In answer to you other question on Hotmail).

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  3. The mirror being higher than the torch and pointed away from the figure represents an image to be interpreted backackwards. The broken sideways cross, the globe being stepped on next to the symbol of controlling the world through trickery and the scales lowest of all...

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    Replies
    1. Interesting perspective...in more ways than one. Cheers.

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