Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of s: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct from artistic style. The word iconography comes from the Greek ("image") and ("to write" or to draw).
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 "icons", in the Byzantine and Orthodox Christian tradition. This usage is mostly found in works translated from languages such as Greek or Russian, with the correct term being "icon painting".
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, 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,Oxford Bibliographies: Paul Taylor, "Iconology and Iconography"Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance. Oxford 1939. 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.
Scholarship
Foundations Early Western writers who took special note of the content of images include Giorgio Vasari, whose Ragionamenti interpreted the paintings in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Ragionamenti reassuringly demonstrates that such works were difficult to understand even for well-informed contemporaries. Lesser known, though it had informed poets, painters and sculptors for over two centuries after its 1593 publication, was Cesare Ripa's emblem book Iconologia.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 Gian Pietro Bellori, a 17th-century biographer of artists of his own time, describes and analyses, not always correctly, many works. Lessing's study (1796) of the classical figure 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.Białostocki:535
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)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. all specialists in Christian religious art, which was the main focus of study in this period, in which French scholars were especially prominent. They looked back to earlier attempts to classify and organise subjects encyclopedically like Cesare Ripa and 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. These early contributions paved the way for encyclopedias, 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 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. 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," 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.For example by Anne D'Alleva in her Methods and Theories of Art History, pp. 20–28, 2005, Laurence King Publishing,
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. In an influential article of 1942, Introduction to an "Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture",Richard Krautheimer, Introduction to an "Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 5. (1942), pp. 1–33.Online text 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.Białostocki:537 Whereas most iconographical 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 of that picture) 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 has been the subject of books for a general market with new theories as to its iconography,Most recently: North, John (September, 2004). The Ambassador's Secret: Holbein and the World of the Renaissance. Orion Books and the best-sellers of Dan Brown include theories, disowned by most art historians, on the iconography of works by Leonardo da Vinci.
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.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).
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.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.
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 ArtIndex of Medieval Art website (formerly Index of Christian Art) at Princeton (which has made a specialism of iconography since its early days in America).Białostocki:538-39 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 system for the classification of the content of images, with 40,000+ classification types, and 84,000 (14,000 unique) 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.Illuminated manuscripts from the Dutch royal Library, browsable by ICONCLASS classification and Ross Publishing - examples of databases for sale The system can also be used outside pure art history, for example on sites like Flickr.website Iconclass for Flickr
Brief survey
Religious images are used to some extent by all major religions, including both Indian and Abrahamic faiths, and often contain highly complex iconography, which reflects centuries of accumulated tradition. Secular Western iconography later drew upon these themes.
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, also found in Christian and Islamic art, and divine qualities and attributes represented by asana and ritual tools such as the dharmachakra, vajra, 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. The art of Indian Religions, especially Hindus, in its numerous sectoral divisions, is governed by sacred texts called the Agamas which describes the ratio and proportion of the icon, called taalmaana as well as mood of the central figure in a context. For example, Narasimha, an incarnation of Vishnu, though considered a wrathful deity, is in few contexts, depicted in pacified mood.
Although iconic depictions of, or concentrating on, a single figure are the dominant type of Buddhist image, large stone 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 earlier periods. Conversely, in Hindu art, narrative scenes have become rather more common in recent centuries, especially in miniature paintings of the lives of Krishna and Rama.
Christianity