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64-793: In classical religious iconography or mythological art, three separate beings may represent either a triad who typically appear as a group (the Greek Moirai , Charites , and Erinyes ; the Norse Norns ; or the Irish Morrígan ) or a single deity notable for having three aspects (Greek Hecate , Roman Diana ). Georges Dumézil proposed in his trifunctional hypothesis that ancient Indo-European society conceived of itself as structured around three activities: worship, war, and toil. As social structures developed, particular segments of societies became more closely associated with one of

128-476: A modern imposition onto Indo-European religion rather than an idea present in the society itself. Vesna Petreska posits that myths including trinities of female mythical beings from Central and Eastern European cultures may be evidence for an Indo-European belief in trimutive female " spinners " of destiny. However, according to the linguist M. L. West , various female deities and mythological figures in Europe show

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

320-484: 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). Maurus Servius Honoratus Servius , distinguished as Servius

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;

512-544: A threefold unity of the divine huntress, the Moon goddess and the goddess of the nether world, Hekate ". This coin shows that the triple goddess cult image still stood in the lucus of Nemi in 43 BC. The Lake of Nemi was Triviae lacus for Virgil ( Aeneid 7.516), while Horace called Diana montium custos nemoremque virgo ("keeper of the mountains and virgin of Nemi") and diva triformis ("three-form goddess"). In his commentary on Virgil , Maurus Servius Honoratus said that

576-708: 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

640-557: A wide range of triple forms: the most common triadic depiction is that of the triple mother goddess" (she lists numerous examples). In the case of the Irish Brigid it can be ambiguous whether she is a single goddess or three sisters, all named Brigid. The Morrígan also appears sometimes as one being, and at other times as three sisters, as do the three Irish goddesses of sovereignty , Ériu , Fódla and Banba . Nicene Christians profess "one God in three divine persons" ( God

704-680: 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

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768-509: Is a comparatively short commentary, attributed to Servius in the superscription in the manuscripts and by other internal evidence. The second class derive from the 10th and 11th centuries, embed the same text in a much expanded commentary. The copious additions are in contrasting style to the original; none of these manuscripts bears Servius' name, and the commentary is known traditionally as Servius auctus or Servius Danielis , from Pierre Daniel who first published it in 1600. "The added matter

832-434: 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

896-627: Is added. It also indicates the three basic states of consciousness, in addition to which the whole syllable is interpreted as the subject of the consciousness, the self-principle ( Ātman ), which is considered to be identical with the Brahman. The Tridevi is the trinity of goddess consorts for the gods in the Trimurti, typically personified by the Hindu goddesses Saraswati , Lakshmi , and Parvati . In Shaktism , these triune goddesses are considered

960-415: 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

1024-459: Is considered the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. The sacred symbol of Hinduism, the Om (or Aum), the sacred sound, syllable, mantra, and invocation, is considered to have an allusion to Trimurti, where the A, U, and M phonemes of the word are considered to indicate creation, preservation and destruction, the which the whole as representing the transcendent or absolute Brahman

1088-484: Is undoubtedly ancient, dating from a time but little removed from that of Servius, and is founded to a large extent on historical and antiquarian literature which is now lost. The writer is anonymous and probably a Christian", although one proposed author, Aelius Donatus , was a Christian. A third class of manuscripts, written for the most part in Italy, includes the core text with interpolated scholia , which demonstrate

1152-604: 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

1216-543: 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

1280-642: 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

1344-596: 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

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1408-445: 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

1472-560: The Father , God the Son and God the Holy Ghost ), Modalism is a form of Christian Unitarianism which stands in opposition to Trinitarianism and holds that the one God is also just one person, but simply appears in three different forms; those forms being the Father, Son, and Spirit. Modalism holds that the same one God simply appears in different forms throughout history. For example, Jesus

1536-524: The Father , God the Son and God the Holy Spirit ). This is not to be understood as a belief in (or worship of) three Gods , nor as a belief that there are three subjectively-perceived "aspects" in one God, both of which the Catholic Church condemns as heresy . The Catholic Church also rejects the notions that God is "composed" of its three persons and that "God" is a genus containing

1600-719: The Grammarian ( Latin : Servius or Seruius Grammaticus ), was a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian . He earned a contemporary reputation as the most learned man of his generation in Italy ; he authored a set of commentaries on the works of Virgil . These works, In Tria Virgilii Opera Expositio ("Exposition on Three Works of Virgil"), Commentarii in Virgilium ("Commentaries on Virgil"), Commentarii in Vergilii Opera ("Commentaries on

1664-607: 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,

1728-783: 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

1792-609: The Works of Vergil"), or Vergilii Carmina Commentarii ("Commentaries on the Poems of Virgil"), constituted the first incunable to be printed at Florence , by Bernardo Cennini , in 1471. In the Saturnalia of Macrobius , Servius appears as one of the interlocutors; allusions in that work and a letter from Symmachus to Servius indicate that he was not a convert to Christianity. The name Servius also appears as Seruius owing to

1856-649: 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

1920-532: The continued usefulness of the Virgilii Opera Expositio . Besides the Virgilian commentary, other works of Servius are extant: a collection of notes on the grammar ( Ars grammatica ) of Aelius Donatus; a treatise on metrical endings in verse ( De finalibus ); and a tract on the different poetic meters ( De centum metris ). The edition of Georg Thilo and Hermann Hagen (1878–1902), remains

1984-762: 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,

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2048-432: The entry, " Hecate : A triple deity, called Phoebe or the Moon in heaven, Diana on the earth, and Hecate or Proserpine in hell," and noted that "Chinese have the triple goddess Pussa". The Roman poet Ovid , through the character of the Greek woman Medea , refers to Hecate as "the triple Goddess"; the earlier Greek poet Hesiod represents her as a threefold goddess, with a share in earth, sea, and starry heavens. Hecate

2112-648: 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

2176-421: 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

2240-530: 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 ,

2304-559: The influence of pre-Indo-European goddess-worship, and triple female fate divinities, typically "spinners" of destiny, are attested all over Europe and in Bronze Age Anatolia. The trinity of supreme divinity in Hinduism , in which the cosmic functions of creation, preservation, and destruction are personified as a triad of deities, is called Trimūrti (Sanskrit: त्रिमूर्ति 'three forms' or 'trinity'), where Brahma

2368-513: 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

2432-545: 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

2496-627: 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

2560-654: 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

2624-532: The literary figure of Morgan le Fay as a manifestation of a British triple goddess in the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight . A modern idea of a triple goddess is central to the new religious movement of Wicca . Hecate will never join in that offence: Unjust is the request you make, and I In kindness your petition shall deny; Yet she that grants not what you do implore, Shall yet essay to give her Jason more; Find means t' encrease

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2688-460: 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

2752-470: The manifestations of Mahadevi , the Supreme Goddess (the female abolute), also known as Mula-Prakriti or Adi Parashakti. The Roman goddess Diana was venerated from the late sixth century BC as diva triformis , "three-form goddess", and early on was conflated with the similarly depicted Greek goddess Hekate . Andreas Alföldi interpreted a late Republican numismatic image as Diana "conceived as

2816-467: 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

2880-573: The mid-first to third century AD. Miranda Green observes that "triplism" reflects a way of "expressing the divine rather than presentation of specific god-types. Triads or triple beings are ubiquitous in the Welsh and Irish mythic imagery" (she gives examples including the Irish battle-furies, Macha , and Brigit ). "The religious iconographic repertoire of Gaul and Britain during the Roman period includes

2944-606: 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

3008-512: 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

3072-544: 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,

3136-446: 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

3200-400: The same goddess was called Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Proserpina in hell. Spells and hymns in Greek magical papyri refer to the goddess (called Hecate , Persephone , and Selene , among other names) as "triple-sounding, triple-headed, triple-voiced..., triple-pointed, triple-faced, triple-necked". In one hymn, for instance, the "Three-faced Selene" is simultaneously identified as

3264-481: The stock of Aeson's years, Without retrenchment of your life's arrears; Provided that the triple Goddess join A strong confed'rate in my bold design. 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

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3328-414: The three Charites , the three Moirai , and the three Erinyes ; she is further addressed by the titles of several goddesses. Translation editor Hans Dieter Betz notes: "The goddess Hekate, identical with Persephone, Selene, Artemis, and the old Babylonian goddess Ereschigal , is one of the deities most often invoked in the papyri." E. Cobham Brewer 's 1894 Dictionary of Phrase & Fable contained

3392-593: The three fundamental activities. These segments, in turn, became entrenched as three distinct "classes", each one represented by its own god. In 1970, Dumézil proposed that some goddesses represented these three qualities as different aspects or epithets. Interpreting various deities, including the Iranian Anāhitā and the Roman Juno , he identified what were, in his view, examples of this. Dumézil's trifunctional hypothesis proved controversial. Many critics view it as

3456-735: The three persons. The c. fourth-century Gnostic text " Trimorphic Protennoia " presents a threefold discourse of the three forms of Divine Thought: the Father, the Son, and the Mother ( Sophia ). Micheus, Michar, and Mnesinous , the three heavenly spirits of baptism, also appear in various Sethian Gnostic texts. Some Christian saints , especially martyrs , are trios who share a feast day or other remembrance. (See Category:Saints trios .) Whether they are subject to actual veneration and prayed to for supernatural aid, or simply honored, varies by Christian denomination . Whereas Nicene Christians professes "one God in three divine persons" ( God

3520-661: The underworld), as in Plato 's Phaedrus , concerning the myth of Dionysus and the Titans) The Matres or Matronae are usually represented as a group of three but sometimes with as many as 27 (3 × 3 × 3) inscriptions. They were associated with motherhood and fertility. Inscriptions to these deities have been found in Gaul, Spain, Italy, the Rhineland and Britain, as their worship was carried by Roman soldiery dating from

3584-696: The unity of the Latin letters V and U from antiquity until as late as the 18th century. Many medieval manuscripts of Servius's commentaries give him the praenomen Marius or Maurus and the cognomen Honoratus . The authenticity of these names—shared by Christian saints—is now doubted. The commentary on Virgil 's Aeneid — In Vergilii Aeneidem Commentarii , In Aeneida , Commentarii in Vergilii Aeneidem , In Vergilii Aeneidos Libros I–III Commentarii , or Ad Aen. —survives in two distinct manuscript traditions. The first

3648-529: 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

3712-462: 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

3776-478: Was depicted variously as a single womanly form; as three women back-to-back; as a three-headed woman, sometimes with the heads of animals; or as three upper bodies of women springing from a single lower body ("we see three heads and shoulders and six hands, but the lower part of her body is single, and closely resembles that of the Ephesian Artemis".) The Olympian demiurgic triad in platonic philosophy

3840-663: 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 ,

3904-607: 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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3968-566: Was made up of Zeus (considered the Zeus [king of the gods] of the Heavens ), Poseidon (Zeus of the seas ) and Pluto / Hades (Zeus of the underworld ). All were considered to be ultimately a monad ; the same Zeus who gave rise to the Titanic demiurgic triad of Helios (the sun when in the sky), Apollo (the sun seen in the world of humankind), and Dionysus (god of mysteries , or the "sun" of

4032-596: 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

4096-438: Was simply one form of the same God, and so Modalism holds that the "Father" suffered no less on the cross than did the "Son", as these are simply two names for one deity appearing in different forms. In addition, Modalism holds that the Holy Spirit is not a separate person from the Father either, but is simply a term that describes God in action. Modalism is considered a heresy in orthodox Christianity. Peter H. Goodrich interprets

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