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64-707: Taken together, the works of the Vatican Mythographers provided a source-book of Greek and Roman myths and their iconography throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The texts, which were being copied in manuscripts as late as the 15th century, were parsed allegorically to provide Christianized moral and theological implications, "until in time the pagan divinities blossomed into full-fledged vices and virtues". Their testimonia , sources, and parallel passages constitute central documents in

128-481: A certain Alberic of London , who is named in a number of the manuscripts, or to Alexander Neckam . Iconography Iconography , as a branch of art history , studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: 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

192-769: 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. In early twentieth-century Germany , Aby Warburg (1866–1929) and his followers Fritz Saxl (1890–1948) and Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968) elaborated

256-474: 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 , although

320-625: A sample of N=1,437 child sexual abuse (CSA) online press articles that included 419 stock photos, a CSA iconography (i.e. a set of typical image motifs for a topic) was revealed that relate to criminal reporting: The CSA iconography visualizes 1. crime contexts, 2. course of the crime and people involved, and 3. consequences of the crime for the people involved (e.g., image motif: perpetrator in handcuffs). Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari ( / v ə ˈ s ɑːr i / , US also /- ˈ z ɑːr -, v ɑː ˈ z ɑːr i / ; Italian: [ˈdʒordʒo vaˈzaːri] ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574)

384-460: 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. 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

448-512: A thousand years ago, though development, and some shifts in meaning, have occurred – for example, the old man wearing a fleece in conversation with Saint Joseph usually seen in Orthodox Nativities seems to have begun as one of the shepherds, or the prophet Isaiah , but is now usually understood as the "Tempter" ( Satan ). In both East and West, numerous iconic types of Christ , Mary and saints and other subjects were developed;

512-708: 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

576-680: A wrathful deity but in few contexts is 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

640-434: Is a concern of other academic disciplines including Semiotics , Anthropology , Sociology , Media Studies , Communication Studies , and Cultural Studies . These analyses in turn have affected conventional art history, especially concepts such as signs in semiotics . Discussing imagery as iconography in this way implies a critical "reading" of imagery that often attempts to explore social and cultural values. Iconography

704-415: Is also used within film studies to describe the visual language of cinema, particularly within the field of genre criticism . In the age of Internet, the new global history of the visual production of Humanity (Histiconologia ) includes History of Art and history of all kind of images or medias. Contemporary iconography research often draws on theories of visual framing to address such diverse issues as

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768-599: Is incorrect; Andrea died several years before Domenico. In another example, Vasari's biography of Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, whom he calls " Il Sodoma ", published only in the second edition of the Lives (1568) after Bazzi's death, condemns the artist as being immoral, bestial, and vain. Vasari dismisses Bazzi's work as lazy and offensive, despite the artist's having been named a Cavalier of the Supreme Order of Christ by Pope Leo X and having received important commissions for

832-514: Is now regarded as including many factual errors, especially when covering artists from before he was born. Vasari was a Mannerist painter who was highly regarded both as a painter and architect in his day, but rather less so in later centuries. He was effectively what would now be called the minister of culture to the Medici court in Florence , and the Lives promoted, with enduring success,

896-604: The Catacombs of Rome show orans figures, portraits of Christ and some saints, and a limited number of "abbreviated representations" of biblical episodes emphasizing deliverance. From the Constantinian period monumental art borrowed motifs from Roman Imperial imagery, classical Greek and Roman religion and popular art – the motif of Christ in Majesty owes something to both Imperial portraits and depictions of Zeus . In

960-543: The Franciscans , 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

1024-642: The Greek εἰκών ("image") and γράφειν ("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

1088-596: The Late Antique period iconography began to be standardized, and to relate more closely to Biblical texts, although many gaps in the canonical Gospel narratives were plugged with matter from the apocryphal gospels . Eventually, the Church would succeed in weeding most of these out, but some remain, like the ox and ass in the Nativity of Christ . After the period of Byzantine iconoclasm iconographical innovation

1152-771: The Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, where he and his assistants worked from 1555. Vasari also helped to organize the decoration of the Studiolo , now reassembled in the Palazzo Vecchio. In Rome, he painted frescos in the Sala Regia . Among his better-known pupils or followers are Sebastiano Flori , Bartolomeo Carducci , Mirabello Cavalori (Salincorno), Stefano Veltroni (of Monte San Savino ), and Alessandro Fortori (of Arezzo). His last major commission

1216-597: The Villa Farnese and other sites. Vasari's biographies are interspersed with amusing gossip. Many of his anecdotes seem plausible, while others are assumed fictions, such as the tale of young Giotto painting a fly on the surface of a painting by Cimabue that supposedly, the older master repeatedly tried to brush away (a genre tale that echoes anecdotes told of the Greek painter Apelles ). He did carry out research archives for exact dates, as modern art historians do, and his biographies are considered more reliable in

1280-445: 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

1344-647: The Florentine Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno , with Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici and Michelangelo as capi of the institution. Thirty-six artists were chosen as members. He died on 27 June 1574 in Florence , Grand Duchy of Tuscany , aged 62. In 1529, he visited Rome where he studied the works of Raphael and other artists of the Roman High Renaissance . Vasari's own Mannerist paintings were more admired in his lifetime than afterwards. In 1547, he completed

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1408-607: The Index of Medieval Art (formerly Index of Christian Art) at Princeton (which has made a specialism of iconography since its early days in America). 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,

1472-685: The Vatican manuscript, is the version that replaced Mai's first edition and has been drawn on in popular 20th-century anthologies of Greek mythology, such as those by Edith Hamilton , Robert Graves , and Karl Kerenyi . The work of the First Vatican Mythographer is essentially a pared-down "fact-book" of mythology, stripped of nuance, not unlike the Fabulae of Hyginus , who, however, had provided no Roman stories and so could not suffice. No classical authors are quoted directly, but

1536-783: The Virgin , parts of the Old Testament, and, increasingly, the lives of popular saints . Especially in the West, a system of attributes developed for identifying individual 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 period sculpture on churches became increasingly important in Western art, and probably partly because of

1600-515: The arts had been in the air since the time of Alberti . Vasari's term, applied to the change in artistic styles with the work of Giotto, eventually would become the French term Renaissance (rebirth) widely applied to the era that followed. Vasari was responsible for the modern use of the term Gothic art , as well, although he only used the word Goth in association with the German style that preceded

1664-438: The author seems to have used the commentary on Virgil by Servius and the scholiasts on Statius as sources. A modern edition of the text was published in 1995 by Nevio Zorzetti. On the basis of the latest source cited in it and the date of the first source to cite it, Zorzetti dates the composition of the work between the last quarter of the 9th century and the third quarter of the 11th century. Ten manuscripts are known for

1728-422: The case of his contemporary painters and those of the preceding generation. Modern criticism – with new materials produced by research – has revised many of his dates and facts. Vasari included a short autobiography at the end of the Lives , and added further details about himself and his family in his lives of Lazzaro Vasari and Francesco Salviati . According to the historian Richard Goldthwaite, Vasari

1792-598: The church of Santa Croce in Bosco Marengo ( Province of Alessandria , Piedmont ). In 1562, Vasari built the octagonal dome on the Basilica of Our Lady of Humility in Pistoia , an important example of High Renaissance architecture. In Rome, Vasari worked with Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola and Bartolomeo Ammannati at Pope Julius III 's Villa Giulia . Often called "the first art historian", Vasari invented

1856-405: The circle of Andrea del Sarto and his pupils, Rosso Fiorentino and Jacopo Pontormo , where his humanist education was encouraged. He was befriended by Michelangelo , whose painting style would influence his own. Vasari enjoyed high repute during his lifetime and amassed a considerable fortune. He married Niccolosa Bacci, a member of one of the richest and most prominent families of Arezzo. He

1920-649: The collections of the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin and the German Marburger Index . These are available, usually on-line or on DVD . The system can also be used outside pure art history, for example on sites like Flickr . 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. Central to

1984-516: The cultural change. The term was adopted thereafter in historiography and is still in use today. Vasari was born prematurely on 30 July 1511 in Arezzo , Tuscany . Recommended at an early age by his cousin Luca Signorelli , he became a pupil of Guglielmo da Marsiglia , a skillful painter of stained glass . Sent to Florence at the age of sixteen by Cardinal Silvio Passerini , he joined

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2048-643: 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. 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,

2112-543: The genre of the encyclopedia of artistic biographies with his Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori ( Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects ). This work was first published in 1550 and dedicated to Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici . Vasari introduced the term "Rinascita" (rebirth in Italian) in printed works – although an awareness of an ongoing "rebirth" in

2176-685: The hall of the chancery in Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome with frescoes that received the name Sala dei Cento Giorni . He was regularly employed by members of the Medici family in Florence and Rome. He also worked in Naples (for example on the Vasari Sacristy ), Arezzo, and other places. Many of his paintings still exist, the most important being on the wall and ceiling of the Sala di Cosimo I in

2240-648: 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

2304-421: The iconography of climate change created by different stakeholders, the iconography that international organizations create about natural disasters, the iconography of epidemics disseminated in the press, and the iconography of suffering found in social media. An iconography study in communication science analyzed stock photos used in press reporting to depict the social issue of child sexual abuse. Based on

2368-557: The idea of Florentine superiority in the visual arts . Vasari designed the Tomb of Michelangelo , his hero, in the Basilica of Santa Croce , Florence that was completed in 1578. Based on Vasari's text in print about Giotto 's new manner of painting as a rinascita (rebirth), author Jules Michelet in his Histoire de France (1835) suggested the adoption of Vasari's concept, using the term Renaissance (rebirth, in French) to distinguish

2432-530: 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. 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 ,

2496-513: 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 esp. Hindus in its numerous sectoral divisions is governed by sacred texts called the Aagama 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

2560-497: The invention of engraving . Venetian art in particular (along with arts from other parts of Europe), is ignored systematically in the first edition. Between his first and second editions, Vasari visited Venice and while the second edition gave more attention to Venetian art (finally including Titian ), it did so without achieving a neutral point of view. Many inaccuracies exist within his Lives . For example, Vasari writes that Andrea del Castagno killed Domenico Veneziano , which

2624-545: 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

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2688-627: 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 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

2752-594: The lines of history painting , and after some decades the Catholic Council of Trent reined in somewhat the freedom of Catholic artists. Secular painting became far more common in the West from the Renaissance, and developed its own traditions and conventions of iconography, in history painting , which includes mythologies , portraits , genre scenes , and even landscapes , not to mention modern media and genres like photography , cinema , political cartoons , comic books . Renaissance mythological painting

2816-460: The lives of Krishna and Rama . Christian art features Christian iconography, prominently developed in the medieval era and renaissance , and is a prominent aspect of Christian media . Aniconism was rejected within Christian theology from the outset, and the development of early Christian art and architecture occurred within the first seven centuries after Jesus . Small images in

2880-467: 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. 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

2944-623: The medieval churches of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce . In both buildings, he removed the original rood screen and loft, and remodeled the retro- choirs in the Mannerist taste of his time. In Santa Croce, he produced the painting of The Adoration of the Magi commissioned by Pope Pius V in 1566 and completed in February 1567. It was restored recently, before being exhibited in 2011 in Rome and Naples. Eventually, it will be returned to

3008-606: 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) 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

3072-512: 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

3136-544: 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,

3200-446: 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. As regards the interpretation of Christian art , that Panofsky researched throughout his life, the iconographic interest in texts as possible sources remains important, because

3264-428: The rebirth, which he identified as "barbaric". The Lives also included a novel treatise on the technical methods employed in the arts. The book was partly rewritten and extended in 1568, with the addition of woodcut portraits of artists (some conjectural). The work shows a consistent and notorious bias in favour of Florentines and tends to attribute to them all the developments in Renaissance art – for example,

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3328-691: The riverside environment. In Florence, Vasari also designed the long passage, now called Vasari Corridor, which connects the Uffizi with the Palazzo Pitti on the other side of the river. The corridor passes alongside the River Arno on an arcade, crosses the Ponte Vecchio , and winds around the exterior of several buildings. It was once the location of the Mercado de Vecchio. He renovated

3392-587: The second text, and more than forty for the third. The work of the Second Vatican Mythographer, which draws on that of the first, though it is considerably longer, perhaps dates to the 11th century. A modern edition of it was produced by Péter Kulcsár in 1987. The work of the Third Vatican Mythographer, which differs from the others by containing "extensive allegorical interpretations", has often been attributed either to

3456-655: The transmission of classical culture to the medieval world, which is a major theme in the history of ideas in the West—though the texts have also been described as "highly deceptive sources which should be used with much caution". Mai made many slips in rapidly transcribing the manuscript under difficult conditions, and he was in the habit of substituting euphemisms where the original was too sexually explicit to transcribe and publish, even in Latin. A revised, indexed edition of 1834, corrected by Georg Heinrich Bode without access to

3520-597: The vista at the far end of its long narrow courtyard. It is a unique piece of urban planning that functions as a public piazza, and which, if considered as a short street, is unique as a Renaissance street with a unified architectural treatment. The view of the Loggia from the Arno reveals that, with the Vasari Corridor , it is one of the very few structures lining the river that is open to the river and appears to embrace

3584-529: 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, 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

3648-462: Was Cesare Ripa 's emblem book Iconologia . 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. Iconography as an academic art historical discipline developed in

3712-642: Was a vast The Last Judgement fresco on the ceiling of the cupola of the Florence Cathedral that he began in 1572 with the assistance of the Bolognese painter Lorenzo Sabatini . Unfinished at the time of Vasari's death, it was completed by Federico Zuccari . Aside from his career as a painter, Vasari was successful as an architect. His loggia of the Palazzo degli Uffizi by the Arno opens up

3776-407: Was an Italian Renaissance painter , architect, art historian and biographer, who is best known for his work Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects , considered the ideological foundation of all art-historical writing, and still much cited in modern biographies of the many Italian Renaissance artists he covers, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo , although he

3840-546: 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 ,

3904-556: 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 Goya , William Blake , Gauguin , Picasso , Frida Kahlo , and Joseph Beuys . Iconography, often of aspects of popular culture ,

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3968-402: Was made Knight of the Golden Spur by the Pope. He was elected to the municipal council of his native town and finally, rose to the supreme office of gonfaloniere . He built a fine house in Arezzo in 1547 and decorated its walls and vaults with paintings. It is now a museum in his honour named the Casa Vasari , whilst his residence in Florence is also preserved. In 1563, he helped found

4032-476: Was one of the earliest authors to use the term "competition" (or "concorrenza" in Italian) in its economic sense. He used it repeatedly, and stressed the concept in his introduction to the life of Pietro Perugino , in explaining the reasons for Florentine artistic preeminence. In Vasari's view, Florentine artists excelled because they were hungry, and they were hungry because their fierce competition amongst themselves for commissions kept them so. Competition, he said,

4096-532: Was regarded as unhealthy, if not heretical, in the Eastern Church, though it still continued at a glacial pace. More than in the West, traditional depictions were often considered to have authentic or miraculous origins , and the job of the artist was to copy them with as little deviation as possible. The Eastern church also never accepted the use of monumental high relief or free-standing sculpture, which it found too reminiscent of paganism. Most modern Eastern Orthodox icons are very close to their predecessors of

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