Iconology (from other Greek. Εικών - painting , and λόγος - teaching ) - the name of the research direction in the history of art that arose in the 20s - 30s of the 20th century, which is an addition to iconography and studies the symbolic aspects of a work of art .
Methodological aspects
The term first appeared in the title of Cesare Ripa's "Iconology" (1593). The iconological methodology was successfully used by the Strasbourg scientist Abi Warburg , in 1892 , in his doctoral dissertation on two Botticelli paintings - The Birth of Venus and Primavera (1892). He first demonstrated iconological analysis at the Tenth International Congress of Art Historians in Rome (1912), describing his method of working on frescoes depicting the months of the year in the palace of Sifanoya in Ferrara . Thanks to this, Warburg was able to interpret the astrological content and complex symbolism of this mural. Iconographic analysis began to be widely used by students and employees of Warburg, the so-called. Warburg School .
Iconology was further developed thanks to Erwin Panofsky, an American scientist of German descent. Panofsky correlated works of fine art with literary texts, which were not always directly related to this work, thereby provoking harsh criticism from academic art historians. He searched for “correspondence of form to symbolic meanings”, for this he used the term “artistic intention” (English artistic intention). As the levels of iconological analysis, Panofsky singled out primary, or natural, content, including actual and expressive (making up the "area of artistic motives"), secondary, or conditional, content (making up the area of images, plots, and allegories) and internal meaning (the area of "symbolic meanings) "). “Considering compositional methods, iconographic meanings, pure forms,” wrote Panofsky, “motives, images, plots, and allegories as manifestations of their underlying principles, we treat all these elements as what Ernst Cassirer called symbolic meanings [1] . Panofsky developed in 1939 a special three-stage program for interpreting a work of art:
- prediconographic analysis ;
- iconographic analysis ;
- iconological interpretation .
At the same time, the scientist distinguished three levels of iconological analysis of a work of art:
- phenomenal ;
- significant ;
- documentary .
The iconological methodology is important in research in the field of art history as an important tool for the visual study of various phenomena in outstanding historical and artistic works - of different eras, national origin and method of embodiment.
See also
- Art history
- Iconography
- Aesthetics
Literature
- Holy Stefan Vaneyan. Iconology // Orthodox Encyclopedia . - The Church and Scientific Center "Orthodox Encyclopedia". - T. 22. - S. 47-50.
- ↑ V. G. Vlasov . New Encyclopedic Dictionary of Fine Arts. In 10 t. - St. Petersburg: ABC-Classic. T IV, 2006. C.81-83