Iconography
Iconography, as a branch of
A secondary meaning (based on a non-standard translation of the Greek and Russian equivalent terms) is the production or study of the religious images, called "
In art history, "an iconography" may also mean a particular depiction of a subject in terms of the content of the image, such as the number of figures used, their placing and gestures. The term is also used in many academic fields other than art history, for example semiotics, media studies, and archaeology,[1] and in general usage, for the content of images, the typical depiction in images of a subject, and related senses.
Sometimes distinctions have been made between iconology and iconography,[2][3] although the definitions, and so the distinction made, varies. When referring to movies, genres are immediately recognizable through their iconography, motifs that become associated with a specific genre through repetition.[4]
Scholarship
Foundations
Early Western writers who took special note of the content of images include
Iconography as an academic art historical discipline developed in the nineteenth century in the works of scholars such as
Twentieth century
In early twentieth-century Germany, Aby Warburg (1866–1929) and his followers Fritz Saxl (1890–1948) and Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968) elaborated the practice of identification and classification of motifs in images to using iconography as a means to understanding meaning.[8] Panofsky codified an influential approach to iconography in his 1939 Studies in Iconology, where he defined it as "the branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to form,"[8] although the distinction he and other scholars drew between particular definitions of "iconography" (put simply, the identification of visual content) and "iconology" (the analysis of the meaning of that content), has not been generally accepted, though it is still used by some writers.[9]
In the United States, to which Panofsky immigrated in 1931, students such as Frederick Hartt, and Meyer Schapiro continued under his influence in the discipline.[8] In an influential article of 1942, Introduction to an "Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture",[10] Richard Krautheimer, a specialist on early medieval churches and another German émigré, extended iconographical analysis to architectural forms.
The period from 1940 can be seen as one where iconography was especially prominent in art history.
The method of iconology, which had developed following the publications of Erwin Panofsky, has been critically discussed since the mid-1950s, in part also strongly (Otto Pächt, Svetlana Alpers). However, among the critics, no one has found a model of interpretation that could completely replace that of Panofsky. [13]
As regards the interpretation of Christian art, that Panofsky researched throughout his life, the iconographic interest in texts as possible sources remains important, because the meaning of Christian images and architecture is closely linked to the content of biblical, liturgical and theological texts, which were usually considered authoritative by most patrons, artists and viewers.[14]
Technological advances allowed the building-up of huge collections of photographs, with an iconographic arrangement or index, which include those of the Warburg Institute and the Index of Medieval Art[15] (formerly Index of Christian Art) at Princeton (which has made a specialism of iconography since its early days in America).[16] These are now being digitised and made available online, usually on a restricted basis.
With the arrival of computing, the
Brief survey of iconography
This section needs additional citations for verification. (May 2014) |
Indian religious iconography
Central to the iconography and
Although iconic depictions of, or concentrating on, a single figure are the dominant type of
.Christian iconography
After the
In both East and West, numerous iconic types of
From the
The theory of typology, by which the meaning of most events of the Old Testament was understood as a "type" or pre-figuring of an event in the life of, or aspect of, Christ or Mary was often reflected in art, and in the later Middle Ages came to dominate the choice of Old Testament scenes in Western Christian art.
Whereas in the Romanesque and Gothic periods the great majority of religious art was intended to convey often complex religious messages as clearly as possible, with the arrival of Early Netherlandish painting iconography became highly sophisticated, and in many cases appears to be deliberately enigmatic, even for a well-educated contemporary. The subtle layers of meaning uncovered by modern iconographical research in works of Robert Campin such as the Mérode Altarpiece, and of Jan van Eyck such as the Madonna of Chancellor Rolin and the Washington Annunciation lie in small details of what are on first viewing very conventional representations. When Italian painting developed a taste for enigma, considerably later, it most often showed in secular compositions influenced by Renaissance Neo-Platonism.
From the 15th century religious painting gradually freed itself from the habit of following earlier compositional models, and by the 16th century ambitious artists were expected to find novel compositions for each subject, and direct borrowings from earlier artists are more often of the poses of individual figures than of whole compositions. The
Secular Western iconography
Secular painting became far more common in the West from the Renaissance, and developed its own traditions and conventions of iconography, in
Renaissance mythological painting was in theory reviving the iconography of its
In disciplines other than art history
Iconography, often of aspects of
Contemporary iconography research often draws on theories of visual framing to address such diverse issues as the iconography of climate change created by different stakeholders,[27] the iconography that international organizations create about natural disasters,[28] the iconography of epidemics disseminated in the press,[29] and the iconography of suffering found in social media.[30]
An iconography study in communication science analyzed stock photos used in press reporting to depict the social issue of child sexual abuse.[31] Based on a sample of N=1,437 child sexual abuse (CSA) online press articles that included 419 stock photos, a CSA iconography (i.e. a set of typical image motifs for a topic) was revealed that relate to criminal reporting: The CSA iconography visualizes 1. crime contexts, 2. course of the crime and people involved, and 3. consequences of the crime for the people involved (e.g., image motif: perpetrator in handcuffs).
Articles with iconographical analysis of individual works
- Castelseprio frescoes
- The Flagellation by Piero della Francesca
- The Wilton Diptych
- The Mérode Altarpiece by Robert Campin
- Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, Arnolfini Portrait, Annunciation, all by Jan van Eyck
- Virgin and Child Enthroned by Rogier van der Weyden
- The Magdalen Reading by Rogier van der Weyden
- St. Jerome in His Study by Antonello da Messina
- St. Augustine in His Study by Vittore Carpaccio
- Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer
- Rubens
- Ivan Rutkovych
Examples
See also
References
Citations
- ISBN 978-1-4073-6071-3.
- ^ Oxford Bibliographies: Paul Taylor, "Iconology and Iconography"
- ^ Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance. Oxford 1939.
- ^ Giannetti, Louis (2008). Understanding Movies. Toronto: Person Prentice Hall. p. 52.
- ^ Ripa's full title, rarely used, was Iconologia overo Descrittione Dell’imagini Universali cavate dall’Antichità et da altri luoghi; English Translations and Adaptations of Cesare Ripa's Iconologia: From the 17th to the 19th Century by Hans-Joachim Zimmermann
- ^ a b Białostocki:535
- ISBN 3-87490-701-5
- ^ a b c d e W. Eugene Kleinbauer and Thomas P. Slavens, Research Guide to the History of Western Art, Sources of information in the humanities, no. 2. Chicago: American Library Association (1982): 60-72.
- ISBN 1-85669-417-8
- ^ Richard Krautheimer, Introduction to an "Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 5. (1942), pp. 1-33.Online text Archived April 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Białostocki:537
- ^ Most recently: North, John (September, 2004). The Ambassador's Secret: Holbein and the World of the Renaissance. Orion Books
- ^ Dieter Wuttke (2017), "Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968)", in: The Routledge Companion to Medieval Iconography, ed. by Colum Hourihane, London and New York, pp. 105-122, here p. 119).
- ^ Ralf van Bühren and Maciej Jan Jasiński (2024), The invisible divine in the history of art. Is Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968) still relevant for decoding Christian iconography?, in Church, Communication and Culture 9, pp. 1-36, here pp. 1-4, 9, 23, 28.
- ^ Index of Medieval Art website
- ^ Białostocki:538-39
- ^ "Iconclass website". Iconclass.nl. Retrieved 2014-03-31.
- ^ Illuminated manuscripts from the Dutch royal Library, browsable by ICONCLASS classification Archived 2008-02-20 at the Wayback Machine and Ross Publishing - examples of databases for sale
- ^ website Iconclass for Flickr
- ^ Freeman, Evan. "The life of Christ in medieval and Renaissance art – Smarthistory". Smarthistory – art history. Retrieved March 2, 2022.
- ^ Taylor, Justin (July 18, 2013). "All the Known Audio of C.S. Lewis Speaking". The Gospel Coalition. Retrieved March 2, 2022.
- ^ Kitzinger, Ernst, "The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 8, (1954), pp. 83–150, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, JSTOR
- ISSN 0043-4388. Retrieved March 2, 2022.
- ^ Schiller:66
- ^ Cook and Bernink (1999, 138-140).
- ISBN 978-2-84736-362-3
- OCLC 1226584969.
- S2CID 219010604.
- OCLC 904372902.
- OCLC 902846595.
- S2CID 242216019.
Sources
- Alunno, Marco. Iconography and Gesamtkunstwerk in Parsifal's Two Cinematic Settings in ESM Mediamusic. No. 2 (2013)
- Białostocki, Jan, Iconography, Dictionary of The History of Ideas, Online version, University of Virginia Library, Gale Group, 2003
- Bühren, Ralf van and Maciej Jan Jasiński, The invisible divine in the history of art. Is Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968) still relevant for decoding Christian iconography?, in Church, Communication and Culture 9 (2024), pp. 1–36. DOI: 10.1080/23753234.2024.2322546
- Cook, Pam and Mieke Bernink, eds. 1999. The Cinema Book. 2nd ed. London: BFI Publishing. ISBN 0-85170-726-2.
- ISBN 0-85331-270-2
- Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), Artemis Verlag, 1981-2009 [iconography of ancient mythology]
External links
- The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database
- Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East (Project of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the Universities of Zurich and Fribourg)
- Web site for European Sacred Mountains, Calvaries and Devotional Complexes
- Sacred Icons in Modern Era about the Cult of Great Mother
- LIMC-France—iconography of ancient mythology.
- Christian Iconography
- What iconographers do - case study Archived 2005-08-27 at the Wayback Machine
- "Semiotics and Iconography" from the Handbook of Visual Analysis