‘Le hasard c’est peut-être le pseudonyme de Dieu quand il ne veut pas signer.’ –Théophile Gaultier
The noun ‘sin’ is feminine in German (die Sünde) but masculine in Russian (rpex). (…)
They investigated 790 paintings of German, French, Italian and Spanish artists that represent a personification of abstract entities such as sin, love, time and justice. Afterwards they compared the personified gender with the grammatical gender of the artist’s mother tongue.
What they found out: Personified gender matched the grammatical gender in 78% of the cases. (…)
It may give answers to German women who always have to wonder why southwestern European men are so much more charming: In Italiy, France and Spain the sin is a man.
{ United Academics | Continue reading | More: Frontiers in Psychology }
photo { Juergen Teller }
