Iconography is from the Greek words for 'Image' and 'to write'. It is the identification and description of the content of images, the study of symbols depicted in a work or art or design. Traditionally, these symbols derive from a readily
recognisable, common currency of cultural experience.
WJT Mitchell, Art historian: 'Iconography is about the rhetoric of
images’, that is, it helps us to know ’what
images say and what to say about images’.
Figurative image of dove: Depicts something in the real world, instantly recognisable as opposed to abstract.
Peace symbol: colourful, abstracted.
White flag: Relies on colour to show a message. Shows peace.
Richard Howells, Visual Culture, 2003: 'Paintings have meanings that the artist would expect
the viewer to understand. Successful communication
of these meanings, however, depends upon shared
cultural conventions between painter and viewer’.
Byzantine Portraiture:
We can trace iconography through history. It is an example of early christian portraiture. Symbols within the painting depicted an idea. It is no longer about representing reality, it was an idea through symbols, making connections through earthy material, creating religious symbols. The lamb round his neck, presents a man that is maybe a shepherd. He is possibly Jesus, who was seen as a metaphor of a good shepherd - using our knowledge of the context.
Iconology:
- The study of meaning contained within these iconographic symbols; i.e. the interpretation of the content of images.
- The branch of art history that addresses the description, analysis and interpretation of images.
- Iconology looks at more than the face value of the symbol, taking into account its context - both historical and cultural, as well as in relation to the artist or designer's broader oeuvre of work.
Importance of 'historical and theoretical
context' - Erwin Panofsky - iconologist -
Studies in Iconology (1939).Using visual
evidence to 'unlock' meaning.Looking as
opposed to just seeing.
Take a painting for example:
- The first stage of analysis: What do we see at face value? What genre is it? What is it a painting of? Is there any text?
- Second stage of analysis: What do we see when we read between the lines? What else can we say about it? What details are evident?
- The effective communication of meanings through visual devices requires shared cultural conventiuons between viewer and reader and an understanding of context (the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood).
Van Gogh, The card players
It is a painting, we can start to develop a recognised abstract idea, using light and colour, not super realistic. There are people sat at a table. We can read the title to make an assumption of what the men are doing. We don't know their relationship, where they are, who's winning the game. There are lots of other questions.
Metaphor - A type of analogy where meaning is derived through association, comparison or resemblane. It equates two things in order to make an impact. For example, this image is a sense that they are trying to sell us a tough and strong car. The rhino is where the motor would be. It triggers ideas and is an example of a visual metaphor.
Here are two images. One presents an apple growing into a tree, with text. It displays a seed of an idea growing into creativity. We are left to interpret the other image without text. We can make decisions about what the image means. It is a pair of glasses on there side, and also an egg timer. Associations around time, patience, maybe time running out - a sense of emergency. Then the glasses depict intelligence, saying something about patience being the companion of wisdom.
Symphony in Slang from Lee Presson on Vimeo.
Symphony in Slang by Tex Avery. 1951
Quite old, but it is interesting, he uses an idea of a metaphor and makes it come first. Metaphor is all of the meaning, he's inverted the way of using a metaphor.
Marcel Duchamp, The Creative Act, 1957
‘All in all, the Creative Act is not performed
by the artist alone; the spectator brings the
work in contact with the external world by
deciphering and interpreting its inner
qualifications.’
The audience is just as crucial, it is about the visuals understanding.
Desperate housewives title sequences - introduces famous works of art, all works that have iconographic meaning. Hidden meanings, to how we interpret the characters in desperate housewives.
The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, Jan Van, Eyck 1434
Decode the image, ask questions, every element has a story to tell in this image. I wonder whether the woman is pregnant. I also notice clothes they are wearing, striking background imagery, in a bedroom. Understanding the context of the work that was made around this time. Is it actually a wedding portrait? It may be a portrait about death. This has intrigued people for years. It has a mirror in the back that reflects the room, it opposes questions about where the artist stands, as he isn't in the mirror. Plays around with different perspective ideas. Taking a glance at the painting, we don't notice as many elements as we could if we looked deep into the painting.
Hans Holbein, The Ambassadors, 1533
Crucial for iconography. There are lots of symbolic elements, we can make a iconography reading. There is a splodge in the foreground, it is a detailed double portrait but we can also see a distorted skull. There are religious and scientific symbols. The anamorphic skull as restored in 1998. It is distorted to the viewer. It does communicate a message but in a hidden way. ultimately everything does turn to dust, it interprets death.
Erwin Panofsky's three levels, or 'strata' of iconological meaning:- Primary - see colour, shape, read text etc.
- Conventional - Relies on common understanding and shared knowledge.
- Intrinsic - What does it all mean? start to make assumptions, right or wrong. For example the image, the man might want to be known as polite, lifting his hat off as a good gesture.
Authentic - Some synonyms and antonyms:
- Unique
- Common
- Copy
- True
- False
- Real
- Imitation
- Genuine
- Counterfeit
- Original
What does it mean to be authentic?
For many, the search for the authentic provides a powerful
source of meaning in a secular age, allowing a person a
unique personal identity in a world that seems alienating and
conformist. This demand for authenticity — the honest or the
real — is one of the most powerful movements in
contemporary life, influencing our moral outlook, political
views, and consumer behaviour.
'Craftsmanship names an enduring, basic
human impulse, the desire to do a job well for
its own sake.’ - Richard Sennett
In seeking to make objects which avoided the
appearance of fine art, the Minimalists attempted
to remove the appearance of composition from
their work. To that end, they tried to expunge all
signs of the artist’s guiding hand or thought
processes – all aesthetic decisions – from the
fabrication of the object. For Donald Judd, this was part of Minimalism’s
attack on the tradition of ‘relational composition’ in
European art, one which he saw as an out-moded
rationalism. Rather than the parts of an artwork
being carefully, hierarchically ordered and
balanced, he said they should be ‘just one thing
after another’.
The idea of removing them from the though processes, creating a distance and how that might effect how authentic something might be.
