Iconography

 ( Art History ) 

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 architecture.

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 Erwin 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 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 Bible, Liturgical book 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 Art Index 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

Although iconic depictions of, or concentrating on, a single figure are the dominant type of Buddhist image, large stone bas-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 Caves, 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.

In both East and West, numerous iconic types of Christ, 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 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 . Especially in the West, a system of emblem developed for Saint symbology 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 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 , 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, 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. Whereas in the Romanesque and Gothic art 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 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 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 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.

Renaissance mythological painting was in theory reviving the iconography of its Classical Antiquity, 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 Francisco Goya, William Blake, Paul Gauguin, Picasso, Frida Kahlo, and Joseph Beuys.

Contemporary iconography research often draws on theories of visual framing to address such diverse issues as the iconography of climate change created by different stakeholders,