Iconography

The term “" iconographie" ” appears in the French language in 1547. Its etymology comes from the old Greek " ikon" : image, and graphein" : to write.

In 1757, the Diderot Encyclopedia and of Alembert gives the following definition of " iconographie" : " description of the images or ancient bronze & marble statues, of the busts, the half-busts, the gods home, paintings with fresco, the mosaics & the old miniatures. This word is Greek " ikonographia" and comes from " ikon": image and " grapho": I décris" "

Examples

As of antiquity, art, that it is Persian, Indian, Egyptian, Greek or Roman, uses visual stereotypes which make it possible to identify the subjects represented. The attributes of the kings, the gods, the heroes, of allegorical personifications, their faces, their postures make them easily recognizable. One speaks then about the iconography about such or such character.
, for example, Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky, and Fritz Saxl study the topic of the melancholy by confronting the representations of Saturn (mythology) and of the Mélancolie with the poetic, scientific or philosophical texts which cover subject.

The iconography of the humanistic topics in the visual arts can as of the Renaissance rest on the books of emblems, or on the Iconologia of Cesare Ripa, true iconographic encyclopedia. Besides this one inspires the title of one of the works of the historian of art Erwin Panofsky. However, the ambition and the iconographic complexity of certain works make their interpretation difficult. The textual resources used then by the specialists in the iconography go from the price-fact concluded between the artist and his silent partner to the religious, poetic, philosophical texts or scientists who could inspire it.

Panofsky, Fritz Saxl, Ernst Gombrich and in general the researchers who work in connection with the Warburg institute (Hamburg) or the Institut Courtauld (London) develop the tracks opened by work of Aby Warburg. There exists a certain confusion between the terms iconography and iconology . Erwin Panofsky gives a definition of the second in Essais of Iconologie , but he admits in other texts that the distinction is not essential, and the two terms are often used as synonyms.

Religious iconography

In the Eastern Orthodoxy, the Église established a wide whole of rules and directives to be respected at the time of the figurative representation of the biblical saints or characters. Since the icons communicate the theological truth , one carries the same care there as by composing doctrines or a Dogme. The Eastern orthodoxe theologists find often useful to refer to a particular icon, just like while referring to a document written by a theologist or of a Concile.

Generally, the monks have the responsibility for the writing of the icons.

A Saint must be canonized by a Synode of the bishops before the icons of the saint can be written and venerated.

The iconography is historical since it introduces characters and scenes, allegorical since it points out the data of the Foi, morals since it gives lessons and examples of behavior.

See too

Internal bonds

External bonds

  • Iconography in the contemporary architecture
  • LIMC-France: databases on the iconography of ancient mythology gréco-Roman.

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