Iconography
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/* Iconography in Indian religions */ [[chhatra]]
[[Image:Holbein-ambassadors.jpg|thumb|[[Holbein]]'s ''[[The Ambassadors (Holbein)|The Ambassadors]]'' is a complex work whose iconography remains the subject of debate]]
:''This article is concerned with the methodology of iconography, principally in [[art history]]; for other uses of the term, primarily in [[Eastern Christianity]], see [[Icon]].''
'''Iconography''' is the branch of [[art history]] which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word ''iconography'' literally means "image writing", and comes from the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] ''εικον'' (image) and ''γραφειν'' (to write). A secondary meaning is the painting of [[icon]]s in the [[Byzantine art|Byzantine]] and [[Eastern Orthodox Churches|Orthodox]] Christian tradition. The term is also used in many academic fields other than art history, for example [[semiotics]] and [[media studies]], 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'', although the definitions and so the distinction made varies.
==Iconography as a field of study==
===Foundations of iconography===
Early Western writers who took especial note of the content of images include [[Giorgio Vasari]], whose ''Ragionamenti'', interpreting the paintings in the [[Palazzo Vecchio]] in [[Florence]], reassuringly demonstrates that such works were difficult to understand even for well-informed contemporaries. [[Gian Pietro Bellori]], a 17th century biographer of artists of his own time, describes and analyses, not always correctly, many works. [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing|Lessing]]'s study (1796) of the classical figure [[Cupid|Amor]] with an inverted torch was an early attempt to use a study of a type of image to explain the culture it originated in, rather than the other way round.<ref>Białostocki:535</ref>
[[Image:Hans Memling 056.jpg|thumb|A painting with complex iconography: [[Hans Memling]]'s so-called [[Seven Joys of the Virgin]] - in fact this is a later title for a ''[[Life of the Virgin]]'' cycle on a single panel. Altogether 25 scenes, not all involving the Virgin, are depicted. 1480, [[Alte Pinakothek]], Munich.<ref>Alte Pinakotek, Munich; (Summary Catalogue - various authors), pp. 348-51, 1986, Edition Lipp, ISBN 3874907015</ref>]]
Iconography as an academic art historical discipline developed in the nineteenth-century in the works of scholars such as [[Adolphe Napoleon Didron]] (1806–1867), [[Anton Heinrich Springer]] (1825–1891), and [[Émile Mâle]] (1862–1954)<ref name="kleinbauer"> 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.</ref> all specialists in Christian religious art, which was the main focus of study in this period, in which French scholars were especially prominent.<ref>Białostocki:535</ref> They looked back to earlier attempts to classify and organise subjects encyclopedically like [[Cesare Ripa]]'s ''Iconologia'' and [[Anne Claude Philippe de Tubieres de Grimoard de Pestels de Levis, Comte de Caylus|Anne Claude Philippe de Caylus]]'s ''Recueil d'antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, grècques, romaines et gauloises'' as guides to understanding works of art, both religious and profane, in a more scientific manner than the popular [[aesthetic]] approach of the time.<ref name="kleinbauer" /> These early contributions paved the way for [[encyclopedia]]s, manuals, and other publications useful in identifying the content of art. Mâle's ''l'Art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France'' (originally 1899, with revised editions) translated into English as ''The Gothic Image, Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century'' has remained continuously in print.
===Twentieth-century iconography===
In the early-twentieth century [[Germany]], [[Aby Warburg]] (1866–1929) and his followers [[Fritz Saxl]] (1890–1948) and [[Erwin Panofsky]] (1862–1968) elaborated the practice of identification and classification of motifs in images to using iconography as a means to understanding meaning.<ref name="kleinbauer" /> 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,"<ref name="kleinbauer" /> 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.
In the [[United States]], where Panofsky immigrated in 1931, students such as [[Frederick Hartt]], and [[Meyer Schapiro]] continued under his influence in the discipline.<ref name="kleinbauer" /> In an influential article of 1942, ''Introduction to an "Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture"'', <ref>Richard Krautheimer,Introduction to an "Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 5. (1942), pp. 1-33.[http://aar.iec.cat/institucio/societats/AmicsArtRomanic/activitats/textosesp/espanol04.pdf Online text]</ref> [[Richard Krautheimer]], a specialist on early medieval churches and another German emigré, extended iconographical analysis to [[architecture|architectural forms]].
The period from 1940 can be seen as one where iconography was especially prominent in art history.<ref>Białostocki:537</ref> Whereas most icongraphical scholarship remains highly dense and specialized, some analyses began to attract a much wider audience, for example [[Panofsky]]'s theory (now generally out of favour with specialists) that the writing on the rear wall in the ''[[Arnolfini Portrait]]'' by [[Jan van Eyck]] turned the painting into the record of a marriage contract. [[Holbein]]'s ''[[The Ambassadors (Holbein)|The Ambassadors]]'' has been the subject of books for a general market with new theories as to its iconography,<ref>Most recently: North, John (September, 2004). The Ambassador's Secret: Holbein and the World of the Renaissance. Orion Books</ref> and the [[best-seller]]s of [[Dan Brown]] include theories, disowned by most art historians, on the iconography of works by [[Leonardo da Vinci]].
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 Christian Art'' at [[Princeton University|Princeton]] (which has made a specialism of iconography since its early days in America).<ref>Białostocki:538-39</ref> These are now being digitised and made available online, usually on a restricted basis.
With the arrival of computing, the [[Iconclass]] system, a highly complex way of classifying the content of images, with 28,000 classification types, and 14,000 keywords, was developed in the Netherlands as a standard classification for recording collections, with the idea of assembling huge databases that will allow the retrieval of images featuring particular details, subjects or other common factors. For example, the Iconclass code "71H7131" is for the subject of "[[Bathsheba]] (alone) with David's letter", whereas "71" is the whole "[[Old Testament]]" and "71H" the "story of [[David]]". A number of collections of different types have been classified using Iconclass, notably many types of [[old master print]], the collections of the [[Gemäldegalerie, Berlin]] and the German [[Marburger Index]]. These are available, usually on-line or on [[DVD]].<ref>[http://www.iconclass.nl/ Iconclass website]</ref><ref>[http://www.kb.nl/manuscripts/browser/index.html Illuminated manuscripts from the Dutch royal Library, browsable by ICONCLASS classification] and [http://www.rosspub.com/iconclass.htm Ross Publishing - examples of databases for sale]</ref> The system can also be used outside pure art history, for example on sites like [[Flickr]].<ref>[http://www.iconclass.org/flickr website Iconclass for Flickr]</ref>
==Brief survey of iconography==
[[Image:17th century Central Tibeten thanka of Guhyasamaja Akshobhyavajra, Rubin Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|left|17th century Central [[Tibet|Tibetan]] [[thanka]] of [[Guhyasamāja tantra|Guhyasamaja Akshobhyavajra]]]]
===Iconography in religious art===
[[Religious images]] are used to some extent by all major religions, including both [[Indian religions|Indian]] and [[Abrahamic religion|Abrahamic]] faiths, and often contain highly complex iconography, which reflects centuries of accumulated tradition.
===Iconography in Indian religions===
Central to the iconography and [[hagiography]] of [[Indian religions]] are [[mudra]] or gestures with specific meanings. Other features include the [[aureola]] and [[halo (religious iconography)|halo]], also found in Christian and Islamic art, and divine qualities and attributes represented by [[asana]] and ritual tools such as the [[dharmachakra]], [[vajra]], [[dadar]], [[chhatra]], [[sauwastika]], [[phurba]] and [[danda]]. The symbolic use of colour to denote the [[Classical Elements]] or [[Mahabhuta]] and letters and [[bija]] syllables from sacred alphabetic scripts are other features. Under the influence of [[tantra]] art developed esoteric meanings, accessible only to initiates; this is an especially strong feature of [[Tibetan art]].
Although iconic depictions of, or concentrating on, a single figure are the dominant type of [[Buddhist]] image, large stone [[bas-relief|relief]] or [[fresco]] narrative cycles of the ''Life of the Buddha'', or tales of his previous lives, are found at major sites like [[Sarnath]], [[Ajanta]], and [[Borobudor]], especially in earler periods. Conversely, in [[Hindu]] art, narrative scenes have become rather more common in recent centuries, especially in [[Indian miniature painting|miniature paintings]] of the lives of [[Krishna]] and [[Rama]].
===Christian iconography===
Christian art began, about two centuries after Christ, by borrowing motifs from Roman Imperial imagery, classical Greek and Roman religion and popular art - the motif of [[Christ in Majesty]] owes something to both Imperial portraits and depictions of [[Zeus]]. In the [[Late Antique]] period iconography began to be standardised, and to relate more closely to [[Biblical]] texts, although many gaps in the [[canonical Gospel]] narratives were plugged with matter from the [[apocrypha|apocryphal gospels]]. Eventually the Church would succeed in weeding most of these out, but some remain, like the ox and ass in the [[Nativity of Jesus in art|Nativity of Christ]].
[[Image:Tikhvinskaya.jpg|thumb|The Theotokos of [[Tikhvin]] of ca. 1300, an example of the [[Hodegetria]] type of [[Madonna and Child]].]]
After the [[Iconoclasm (Byzantine)| period of Byzantine iconoclasm]] iconographical innovation was regarded as unhealthy, if not heretical, in the Eastern Church, though it still continued at a glacial pace. More than in the West, traditional depictions were often considered to have authentic or [[Acheiropoieta|miraculous origins]], and the job of the artist was to copy them with as little deviation as possible. The Eastern church also never accepted the use of monumental [[high relief]] or free-standing sculpture, which it found too reminiscent of paganism. Most modern [[Eastern Orthodox]] [[icon]]s are very close to their predecessors of a thousand years ago, though development, and some shifts in meaning, have occurred - for example the old man wearing a fleece in conversation with [[Saint Joseph]] usually seen in Orthodox Nativities seems to have begun as one of the shepherds, or the prophet [[Isaiah]], but is now usually understood as the "Tempter" ([[Satan]]).<ref>Schiller:66</ref>
In both East and West, numerous iconic types of [[Christ]], [[Mary (mother of Jesus)|Mary]] and saints and other subjects were developed; the number of named types of icons of Mary, with or without the infant Christ, was especially large in the East, whereas [[Christ Pantocrator]] was much the commonest image of Christ. Especially important depictions of Mary include the [[Hodegetria]] and [[Panagia]] types. Traditional models evolved for for narrative paintings, including large cycles covering the events of the Life of Christ, the [[Life of the Virgin]], parts of the Old Testament, and, increasingly, the lives of popular [[saint]]s. Especially in the West, a system of [[emblem|attributes]] developed for [[Saint symbology|identifying individual]] figures of saints by a standard appearance and symbolic objects held by them; in the East they were more likely to identified by text labels.
From the [[Romanesque art|Romanesque]] period sculpture on churches became increasingly important in Western art, and probably partly because of the lack of Byzantine models, became the location of much iconographic innovation, along with the [[illuminated manuscript]], which had already taken a decisively different direction from Byzantine equivalents, under the influence of [[Insular art]] and other factors. Developments in theology and devotional practice produced innovations like the subject of the [[Coronation of the Virgin]] and the [[Assumption]], both associated with the [[Franciscan]]s, as were many other developments. Most painters remained content to copy and slightly modify the works of others, and it is clear that the clergy, by whom or for whose churches most art was commissioned, often specified what they wanted shown in great detail.
The theory of [[Typology (theology)|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.
[[Image:Campin merode altarpiece big.jpg|thumb|[[Robert Campin]]'s [[Mérode Altarpiece]] of 1425-28 has a highly complex iconography that is still debated. Is [[Joseph]] making a mousetrap, reflecting a remark of Saint [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] that Christ's Incarnation was a trap to catch men's souls?]]
Whereas in the Romanesque and [[Gothic art|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 [[Annunciation (van Eyck, Washington)|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 [[Platonism in the Renaissance|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 [[The Reformation and art|Reformation]] soon restricted most [[Protestant]] religious painting to Biblical scenes conceived along the lines of [[history painting]], and after some decades the Catholic [[Council of Trent]] reined in somewhat the freedom of Catholic artists.
===Secular Western painting===
Secular painting became far more common from the Renaissance, and developed its own traditions and conventions of iconography, in [[history painting]], which includes [[mythology|mythologies]], [[portrait painting|portraits]], [[genre painting|genre scenes]], and even [[landscape painting|landscapes]], not to mention modern media and genres like [[photography]], [[cinema]], [[political cartoon]]s, [[comic book]]s and [[anime]].
Renaissance mythological painting was in theory reviving the iconography of the ancient world, but in practice themes like [[Leda and the Swan]] developed on largely original lines, and for different purposes. Personal iconographies, where works appear to have significant meanings individual to, and perhaps only accessible by, the artist, go back at least as far as [[Hieronymous Bosch]], but have become increasingly significant with artists like [[Goya]], [[William Blake]], [[Gaugin]], [[Picasso]] and [[Joseph Beuys]].
== Iconography in disciplines other than art history ==
Iconography, often of aspects of [[popular culture]], is a concern of other [[academic disciplines]] including [[Semiotics]], [[Anthropology]], [[Sociology]], [[Media Studies]] and [[Cultural Studies]]. These analyses in turn have affected conventional art history, especially concepts such as [[sign (semiotics)|signs in semiotics]] Discussing imagery as iconography in this way implies a critical "reading" of imagery that often attempts to explore social and cultural values. Iconography is also used within [[Film theory|film studies]] to describe the [[visual language]] of cinema, particularly within the field of [[Film genre|genre criticism]].<ref name="film">Cook and Bernink (1999, 138-140).</ref>
==Iconographic analysis in articles on individual works==
*[[Castelseprio]] frescoes
*[[The Flagellation (Piero della Francesca)]]
*[[Two Venetian Ladies]] by [[Vittore Carpaccio]].
*[[Melencolia I]] by [[Albrecht Dürer]]
*[[Marie de' Medici cycle]] by [[Rubens]]
*[[:Category:William Hogarth paintings and prints]]
==Works cited==
*Białostocki, Jan, ''Iconography'', ''Dictionary of The History of Ideas'', Online version, University of Virginia Library, Gale Group, 2003 [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv2-57]
* Cook, Pam and Mieke Bernink, eds. 1999. ''The Cinema Book''. 2nd ed. London: BFI Publishing. ISBN 0851707262.
* G Schiller, ''Iconography of Christian Art, Vol. I'',1971 (English trans from German), Lund Humphries, London, ISBN 853312702
==Notes==
{{wiktionary|iconography}}
{{reflist}}
== See also ==
* [[Halo (religious iconography)]]
* [[Logo]]
* [[National emblem]]
*[[Symbolic anthropology]]
*[[Symbology]]
*[[Symbolism]]
**Specific religions:
***[[Early Christian art]]
***[[Images of Jesus]]
***[[Saint symbology]]
**[[Buddhist art]]
***[[Ashtamangala]]
***[[Greco-Buddhist art]]
***[[Iconography of the Buddha (Thailand and Laos)]]
***[[Korean Buddhist sculpture]]
***[[Thangka]]
==External links==
*[http://mnemosyne.org/iconography/practice/apollo/#top What iconographers do - case study]
*[http://www.religionswissenschaft.unizh.ch/idd/ Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East (Project of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the Universities of Zurich and Fribourg]
*[http://www.sacrimonti.net/User/index.php?PAGE=Sito_en/app_storia_1 Web site for European Sacred Mountains, Calvaries and Devotional Complexes]
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