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1 results

  • Chapter 6 - Your Highness

  • from Part III - Iconic Dimensions and Magnitudes: The Conformation System of Authority Ranking
  • Alan Page Fiske, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book:
    Representing Relationships
    Published online:
    21 November 2025
    Print publication:
    11 December 2025, pp 151-160

  • Summary

    People imagine high-status persons as tall, and in premodern art often depict rulers as bigger than others. Similarly, to evoke suitable emotions while representing the “greatness” of the Buddha and high gods, people often make statues of them as large as their technology permits. Rulers usually wear headdresses that make them seem tall, and are depicted wearing them. Rulers also tend to wear voluminous robes that make them appear especially large. Modern banners and statues of great political leaders depict them as huge, and their statues are often placed atop tall columns. Another conformation of authority ranking consists of lowering one’s head, bowing, kneeling, or prostrating oneself so as to be below a ruler or other person of “higher” rank. Rulers may place themselves on a dais.