‘Weighing of the heart Ceremony’ – “Anubis measures the dead

mans heart against the feather of truth. If they balance he would be

greeted by Osiris but if not, he would be devoured by a monster
which was part crocodile, part lion and part hippopotamus.”

The oldest culture of the heart comes from the Egyptians. It was believed
that the heart determined whether the deceased could rise from the dead
in paradise in the afterlife. The wide spread symbol of the heart was the
Scarab Beatle which was often carved out of stone or precious metals.
These Scarabs were placed on the heart of the mummified deceased so
they could be weighted against the feather of judgement the hall of Ma'at
during the judgement of the deceased. A heart unburdened with the weight
of sin and corruption would balance with the feather and its possessor
would enjoy the eternal afterlife. Often they were inscribed with a spell
from the ‘Book of the Dead’ so the deceased heart does not betray him in
judgement. - “Do not stand as a witness against me.”

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/blo
od-for-the-gods-aztec-heart-remova
l.html
The Aztecs – 1510 AD
The most precious gift in Aztec
theology was human blood, they
believed that it is a gift that they
give back to the sun to bring heat,
light and energy to the world for
crops to grow. The blood sacrificed
was to please and feed the god
Huitzilopochtli, the sun god, to
keep the sun moving.
The sacrifice was done by
removing the heart with volcanic
flint in one swift movement carried
out by the priest. Once the heart
was removed it was held up to the
sun as an offering for the gods.
The Aztecs knew that blood flowed
through the heart meaning that it
was precious enough gift to please
the gods.
 Separation (1900) by Edvard Munch

As the founding father of the expressionist movement he conveyed the heart in

an emotional sense and its complexity in human nature. Through conveying
emotion rather than realism in his painting ‘Separation’ he shows the split of the
hearts forces of light and darkness. Exploring the idea it can give life and create
irrational and destructive passions of hate. Munch also created theories of the
different centres which human desires revolve, at the centre of these theorise
was the image of the heart.
 Peter Paul Rubens - The Fall of
Icarus (1636)

Henri Matisse - Icarus (1947)