Iconology

Icon, Iconology

1. ICONOLOGY M.Sohaib Afzaal

2. Definition The historical analysis and interpretive study of symbols or images and their contextual significance; iconography. The study of icons or symbolic representations.

3. Introduction Iconography is the description, classification, and interpretation of the subject matter of a work of art. Derived from the Greek words eikon , meaning image or icon , and graphia , meaning description, writing, or sketch, the word iconography is one of the least understood, most abused, and most flexible terms in the English language. Its primary purpose is to understand and explicate the meaning behind what is represented. Simply described, it is by definition closely related to the equally complex but more abstract term iconology , traditionally understood as a more advanced (and secondary) phase in visual definition. Iconology has been described as "the description, classification, or analysis of meaning or symbolism in the visual arts that takes into account the tradition of pictorial motifs and their historical, cultural, and social meaning" (Baca, p. 89). Whereas these two terms were historically distinct, with the latter usually seen as the ultimate aim of all iconographic research, it is clear that modern usage has lessened their division. They have, to a certain extent, become interchangeable.

4. History Iconology is a method of interpretation in cultural history and the history of art used by Aby Warburg , Erwin Panofsky and their followers that uncovers the cultural, social, and historical background of themes and subjects in the visual arts. It is derived from synthesis rather than scattered analysis and examines symbolic meaning on more than its face value by reconciling it with its historical context and with the artist's body of work – in contrast to the widely descriptive iconography , which, as described by Panofsky, is an approach to studying the content and meaning of works of art that is primarily focused on classifying, establishing dates, provenance and other necessary fundamental knowledge concerning the subject matter of an artwork that is needed for further interpretation.

5. Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 in Hannover – March 14, 1968 in Princeton, New Jersey ) was a German-Jewish art historian , whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime . Panofsky's work represents a high point in the modern academic study of iconography , which he used in hugely influential works like his "little book" Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art and his masterpiece , Early Netherlandish Painting . Many of his works are still in print, including Studies in Iconology: Humanist Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (1939), Meaning in the Visual Arts (1955), and his eponymous 1943 study of Albrecht Dürer . Panofsky's ideas were also highly influential in intellectual history in general , particularly in his use of historical ideas to interpret artworks and vice versa.

6. Aby Warburg Aby Moritz Warburg , known as Aby Warburg (June 13, 1866 – October 26, 1929), was a German art historian and cultural theorist who founded a private Library for Cultural Studies, the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg , which was later moved to the Warburg Institute , London. At the heart of his research was the legacy of the Classical World, and the transmission of classical representation, in the most varied areas of western culture through to the Renaissance. Warburg described himself as: Amburghese di cuore , ebreo di sangue , d'anima Fiorentino ( Hamburger at heart, Jew by blood, Florentine in spirit )

7. Historical Development Italy at the end of the sixteenth century provided the first scholarly studies in iconographical classification, all of which appeared within twenty-five years of each other. These include Andrea Alciati's Emblematum liber (Augsburg, 1531), Pierio Valeriano's Hieroglyphica ( Basel , 1556), and Vincenzo Cartari's Le imagini , con la spositione de i dei de gli antichi ( Venice , 1556). All of these were superseded by what is now seen as the first study to deal with the theory of iconography, Cesare Ripa's Iconologia (c. 1555–1622), a slightly ironic publication in that it was initially published without any image whatsoever (not until the third edition in 1603 were woodcuts included). Ripa's study formed the basis for much subsequent research and is one of the most comprehensive iconographic manuals for the student of personifications. It was thanks to the success of his study (and the inclusion of images in subsequent editions) that Ripa's original focus on his subject matter, as documented by the textual, was lost.

8. Cesare Ripa (fl. 1593 ) Little is known of Ripa apart from the fact that he was probably born in Perugia between 1555 and 1560 and is next recorded in the service of Cardinal Antonio Maria Salviati , for whom he acted as controller of the household in Rome . His Iconologia was first published in 1593 to great acclaim and included descriptions of over 1,250 personifications ranging from Abondanza (I, 1 Abundance) to Zelo (V, 417 Zealousness), each of which is described in detail as a manual for writers, artists, and illustrators of the period. The personifications are always described in terms of human forms with their attributes and poses clearly delineated. This dictionary of visual imagery is highly subjective; Ripa not only drew widely on existing representations but, when such precedents did not exist, created structures showing how they should be depicted. The modern iconographic research into nonvisual material is very much in keeping with Ripa's focus, which was intended to encompass all of the arts, visual and otherwise.

9. Émile MÂle (1862–1954 ) Mâle was the first art historian to deal exclusively with medieval iconography, albeit largely with French medieval material. A student of literature at the École normale supérieure in Paris until 1886, his first appointment was as professor of rhetoric at the university at St.Étienne . His reputation was established once he accepted the position of chair in the Department of Medieval Archaeology at the Sorbonne , Paris, in 1908. His studies largely focused on the French origins of both Romanesque and Gothic sculpture and were conducted from a strongly nationalistic and religious perspective. His major work, L'art religieux du XIIe siècle en France, was published in 1922 and was the first in a series of similarly titled studies that evaluated the entire medieval period as a progressive movement, from a stylistic and iconographical stance. Named director of the École français de Rome in 1923, Mâle was criticized both during his lifetime and afterward for his tendency to view iconography as a finite concept and for his unwillingness to see beyond his own period or area of expertise.

10. Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968) Born in Hanover, Panofsky received his Ph.D. in 1914 from the University of Freiburg. He is recognized as one of the most influential scholars of the twentieth century, not only for his academic studies but for his analysis of the methodologies of iconographic analysis and interpretation, which culminated in Studies in Iconology (1939). Before assuming part-time teaching duties at New York University in 1931, he taught at the Universities of Munich , Berlin , and Hamburg (1926–1933), where he was strongly influenced by Aby Warburg and what was then known as iconographical analysis. After the Nazis came to power, Panofsky left Germany for good and took up teaching in New York . In 1935, at the invitation of his friend Charles Rufus Morey, Panofsky transferred to the newly established Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, where he remained until his death in 1968. His writings are characterized by a rare erudition and range. A humanist in the broadest sense, Panofsky wrote on such diverse topics as Gothic scholasticism, Albrecht Dürer , German sculpture, and Suger and the Abbey of St. Denis as well as Mozart, the cinema, and the detective story.

11. Methodology If Ripa was among the first iconographical theoreticians to realize the importance of structure and systematization in this field, others did not follow his path until the beginning of the twentieth century. Informal, loosely defined, and independent structures were developed at the end of the nineteenth century with many scholarly studies in which related concepts and themes were grouped together, and significant and dominant subjects were discovered with the amassing of large bodies of visual data. It was from such studies that the twin applications of methodology to cataloging and interpretation developed. The former, albeit on a less-developed basis, was in place prior to Panofsky's work.

12. Three Level The first of these is usually the broad level descriptor or general subject heading, such as portrait or landscape —an iconographic descriptor at its broadest. The second is the pre-iconographic description of the work—the generic elements in the work, such as bridge, lake, table, and so forth . The third level is the specifics of the work—for example, an identified person's name, the name of a battle or of a bridge —an amalgam of the iconographical and iconological.

13. Trends and Developments Computerization and its application to art history has been the most dominant factor in the popular renewal of interest in iconography. User studies have shown the popularity of accessing subject matter in such venues as museum and gallery databases. There has been a similar renewed interest in scholarly research. Iconography is developing along twin tracks whereby the traditional is being refined with a greater need for detail and new needs are being created with the opening up of new fields. Large-scale iconographical projects have developed in art history with specializations, such as mythology, music, classical and legal material, medicine, and costume, to name just a few. Up to the end of the twentieth century, iconographical studies were largely concerned with Western art and the representational but must now encompass the abstract, stylized, non-Western, and nonrepresentational.

14. Charles Rufus Morey (1877–1955 ) Chairman of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, Morey was a historian of early Christian art whose primary field of study was the iconography of Italian art of the pre-700 period. Apart from his scholarly studies, which ranged from research on gold-glass mosaics to early Latin manuscripts and iconographical motifs of the origins of early Christian art, he is best remembered for founding the Index of Christian Art in 1917. As an iconographer he realized that the major obstacle to understanding the development of particular themes and subjects lay in the lack of available knowledge. It was this that led to his establishment of the world's largest iconographically organized archive of medieval art. Morey's studies, while now slightly outdated, demonstrate his belief that the full understanding of a work of art depends on the use of iconography in a contextualized manner. A close friend of Panofsky, Morey believed that iconography was an organic entity that was constantly developing and that could be understood only in relation to what was known at any one time.

15. Henri van de Waal (1910–1972 ) Born in Rotterdam, van de Waal began his studies in 1929 at the University of Leiden, which was to be his academic home for the rest of his career. He received his Ph.D. in 1940 for a study on the seventeenth-century Batavian revolt. As a writer he is best known for his iconological study on three centuries of representing Dutch national history, Drie eeuwen vaderlandsche geschieduitbeelding 1500–1800: Een iconologische studie (The Hague, 1952), which, although ready for the printer in 1942, was not published until 1952 as the typescript was destroyed by the Germans during the occupation of the Netherlands . While interned in a prisoner of war camp, he began to formulate his theories on structuring a system for iconographic classification that eventually was called ICONCLASS and was published between 1973 and 1985. After the war van de Waal was named director of the University of Leiden's print room and was later made professor of art history there. His classification system is based on Panofsky's pre-iconographic and iconographic levels with nothing iconological in the structure. Factually based, it merges form and content and is now the most widely used iconographical classification system in the world.

16. The Three Levels of Panofsky One significant figure in the research and understanding of iconology is Erwin Panofsky, the author of the book “Studies in Iconology” published in 1939, which has continued now to be a highly influential text in iconology – the understanding and interpretation of meaning in visual representations. According to Panofsky, the study of art objects and images can be separated into three levels:

17. First level  (‘primary’ or ‘natural’)   This is the interpretation of meaning through the familiar. Factual descriptions of what we see and the expressional connotations that derive from the visual are encompassed in this level. We are able to immediately bring meaning to the work by associating it with our own personal practical experiences.

18. Second level   (‘secondary’ or ‘conventional’) This level involves a deeper understanding of the actions or facts presented in the first level . A prior knowledge of concepts and conventional meaning allow the artistic motifs and visual codes in the image to communicate more and in turn we are able to recognise the events taking place in the image.

19. Third level  (‘intrinsic)  Unlike the previous two levels, this level communicates things that the creator of the image may not have consciously been thinking about. Through what we know of the world and linking the objects or codes in the work, this level allows us to reveal the underlying “basic attitude of a nation, a period, a class, a religious or philosophical persuasion – unconsciously qualified by one personality and condensed into one work” (Panofsky, 1972, p. 7). This level is, for Panofsky, the “ultimate goal of iconology” (Panofsky, 1972, p. 9).

20. Icon, Iconography and Iconology As has often been pointed out, the exodus of Jewish scholars from Germany was one of the greatest brain drains of talent of the 20th or any other century.   “Hitler shakes the trees, and I pick up the apples.” This famous quote is attributed to Walter Cook who founded the Fine Arts Department of New York University ( now the Institute of Fine Arts, also known as “The Institute) and moved his scholars to a brownstone next to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  According to Harry Bober in “The Gothic Tower and the Stork Club,” Panofsky was “one of the more resplendent golden apples, joining the department in 1931.  The ideas of Erwin Panofsky and how they were employed or not have depended upon trends in art history. When Panofsky became part of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University (called “The Institute” by those in the know) in 1933, his iconographical system found a permanent home . The discipline of art history in America was greatly enriched by his intellectual and philosophical approach and put what was still a relatively new field of study in his new country on a sounder footing.

21. Because many of its scholars were Jewish, art history was hunted from Europe by the Nazis.  They fled to America, bringing with them concepts based upon European philosophy that were  ill-understood by their new students. Traditionally , the American version of his signature idea: iconography, was greatly simplified into a clunky game of matching symbols (icon) to symbolism (iconography), while neglecting the cultural basis for the meanings (iconology). That said, when Panofsky arrived at Princeton with his Kantian-inspired system, he met with opposition from another branch of Kantian thought–formalist art history and yet another bastion of artistic thought, Marxism. For art historians, Marxist thought or the assertion of Karl Marx that the economy was the “secret engine” of society, was a fruitful way of examining a work of art, for a Marxist analysis would remove the “veil” of the “natural” and reveal the economic basis of the work itself. Formalist art historians, however, preferred to look directly at the work itself and not at the society that produced it. Rather than thinking of these two methods as complementing each other or as adding to a fuller picture of the art, the discipline tended to place Formalism and Marxism as polar (and political) opposites.

22. Iconography is that branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to their form. Let us, then, try to define the distinction between subject matter or meaning on the one hand and form on the other … The meaning thus discovered may be called intrinsic meaning or content ; it is essential where the two other kinds of meaning, the primary or natural and the secondary or conventional , are phenomenal. It may defined as a unifying principle which underlies and explains both the visible event and its intelligible significance, and which determines even the form in which the visible event takes shape. This intrinsic meaning or content is, of course, as much above the sphere of conscious volitions as the expressional meaning is beneath this sphere.

23. Religious Iconography The Virgin Mary is most often shown wearing a blue robe. This is symbolic of heaven and her spirituality. The cross has been a religious icon since the second century and represents Christianity. Marking the sign of the cross on someone’s forehead or chest was used to ward off demons. The Holy Spirit is many times shown as a dove. This comes from the story of Christ’s baptism when the Holy Spirit came from heaven like a dove. It is also used to represent an individual’s soul. Christ is sometimes represented with a fish symbol. This comes from the Greek " icthus ", which is an anagram for Savior, Jesus Christ and Son of God. A snake or monkey is used to represent evil. The purity of the Virgin Mary is shown with lilies in a vase and a bowl or urn of water. A halo, which is a circle of light surrounding a person, is widely used in religious paintings to denote a holy person or saint. Asian religious art uses flames, called mandorla , around the body or head.

24. Iconography in Art  A red poppy is an icon for remembering those killed in wars, especially in World War I. Poppies are worn as a way of sharing in the grief felt for those lost in war. The shape of a heart is widely used to symbolize love and romance.  There have been several symbols used for peace, including the peace sign and holding the first two fingers in a "V" shape. In ancient times the olive branch was used, as well as the dove.

25. Iconography in Film and Television Icons for the Western genre of films includes ten gallon hats, spurs, horses, saloons, guns, jails, and the badge of the sheriff. Icons for horror movies may include young girls, haunted houses, and contrasting shadow and light in darkened places. Bad guys often wear black to symbolize evil and leather jackets, often black, are worn by rebels or tough guys. Thrillers are often filmed in urban neighborhoods whereas scary movies are often set in the suburbs. Science fiction movies have high tech gadgets and automobiles that fly.

26. More Examples of Iconography Countries have symbols for their country including birds, animals, and plants. Many countries have chosen the eagle as their national animal, including the United States, Egypt, Serbia, Austria, the Philippines, Nigeria and Panama. Iconography includes the use of flowers and some examples are: the calla lily for death or grief, the red rose for love and passion, and mistletoe for love and affection (as used by kissing under it). Flags symbolize the country and even the colors have meaning. Red often represents bravery, blood, or revolution; blue can mean freedom, peace, or justice; green may symbolize agriculture, the earth, or Islam; and white may represent purity, innocence, or snow. The Statue of Liberty is used as an icon of freedom, friendship, immigration and enlightenment. Iconography provides a shortcut way to communicate. Over time an icon can become an easy way to describe a large idea in a very abbreviated way.

27. Reference https:// www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/art-and-architecture/art-general/iconography http:// iconictheory.blogspot.com/2010/05/iconology.html http://arthistoryunstuffed.com/erwin-panofsky-and-iconography/ http :// examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-iconography.html Panofsky's Concept of "Iconology" and the Problem of Interpretation in the History of Art Keith Moxey New Literary History Vol. 17, No. 2, Interpretation and Culture (Winter, 1986), pp. 265-274