Iconography and Iconology

Art Histories I (Fiona Anderson)

Week 3 - 15/10/18

Close interpretation / analysis about the work of art

Synthesizing different interpretation
-Biographical
-Contextual
- Politics / Culture at the time it was made

Symbolic expression of the Culture

Human mind –relationship Material World

Three steps of recognition (Erwin Panofsky’s iconographic method)

1) Primary meaning
Visual identification, recognise the object

2) Secondary Meaning
Recognition of customs and tradition of specific culture

3) Intrinsic meaning / CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION

Act of greeting is indicative of the acquaintance’s whole personality

Iconology

Stage 1: Formal characteristics

- Apprehending the artwork
- Recognition of style/ composition
- Visual stage
(pre-iconographic)

Stage 2: Iconographic identification

- Subject matter relating to key themes
- Descriptive stage
- Writing

Stage 3: Iconological interpretation

- ‘logos’ thought of reason
- Synthesizing evidence – what might it mean in terms of the culture it was produced
- Underlining expectations/ politics at that time
Analysis of Melencolia
- Space is cluttered, background receding
Figure appears to be down trodden /androgynous
- Holding a compass/ set of keys attached to aluminous skirt
- Object blocks out horizon
- Set of scales / hourglass / bell
- Man-made world
- fixated on the actual thinking of the figure
- Unrest/ disappointment of human creation
Scales – Balance
Shading on the figures’ face – shaded in a dark way (does not have a healthy glow)
Medieval Medicine – The Four Temperaments
- Epitome of the renaissance artist
- Historical meaning *take out to research
Was fleeing a fascist regime

Another interpretation:
- Ruins / fragments
- Having some structural integrity
- Intentionally made of up of variety of motifs that don’t harmonize with one another
Shouldn’t try to synthesize
- Work is about loss/ depression
-

Paint techniques / what was it intended for/ where was it displayed

Analysis of St. Jerome

- Vanishing point is off centre

- Hourglass / skull
- Lion / dog
- Divine labour of translation (pinnacle of wisdom)
 Aby Warburg – Critical iconography
Mnemosyne atlas (Memory Atlas)
Common motifs in the past * hand / figures
- Resonated across time
- Representative of collective historical memory
- Disrupt national boundaries (during a political time of
upheaval)

Paul Cézanne, Still Life with Plaster Cupid 1894

Piet Mondrian (Composition C) Red, Yellow and Blue

Ana Mendieta (Silueta Works in Mexico)

Material / rational analysis - provoke emotional response in a viewer
Commercial art (Andy Warhol – mainstream culture)
- Consumer culture