Iconology > Cesare Ripa 0064301001 0816033013 Emile Mâle (1862-1954) L'Art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France (1899). Translated into English as The Gothic Idol. L'Art religieux de la fin du Moyen Âge en France (1908) ‘If we impose our categories on mediaeval thought, we run every risk of error, and for that reason we borrow our method of exposition from the Middle Age itself. The four books of Vincent of Beauvais's Mirror furnish us with the framework for the four divisions of our study of thirteenth century art.’ Mâle, The Gothic Idol, p. 23 Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum maius (1235-64) Manuscript from the 14th century ‘The third characteristic of mediaeval art lies in this, that it is a symbolic code. From the days of the catacombs Christian art has spoken in figures, showing men one thing and inviting them to see in it the figure of another. The artist, as the doctors might have put it, must imitate God who under the letter of Scripture hid profound meaning, and who willed that nature too should hold lessons for man. In mediaeval art there are then intentions, a knowledge of which is necessary to any real understanding of the subject. When for example in scenes of the Last Judgment we see the Wise and Foolish Virgins to the right and left hand of Christ, we should thereby understand that they symbolise the elect and the lost.’ Mâle, The Gothic Idol, p. 15 ‘The whole world is a symbol. The sun, the stars, the seasons, day and night, all speak in solemn accents. Of what were the Middle Ages thinking in the winter time when the days were shortening sadly and the darkness seemed to be triumphing for ever over the light ? They thought of the long centuries of twilight that preceded the coming of Christ, and they understood that in the divine drama both light and darkness have their place.’ The Gothic Idol, p. 31 Iconology and Symbolic Forms Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968) Studies in Iconology, first published in 1939 Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology (Oxford, 1939) p. 14 Studies in Iconology (New York, 1962) p. 3 Studies in Iconology (New York, 1962) p. 4 Studies in Iconology (New York, 1962) pp. 4-5 Rogier van der Weyden Adoration of the Magi, the right wing from the Bladelin Altarpiece, ca. 1450 Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology (Oxford, 1939) p. 11 Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology (Oxford, 1939) p. 14 Francesco Maffei Judith or Salome? (1650-60) Erwin Panofsky Early Netherlandish Painting (New York, 1953) Jan van Eyck Man with a Turban (possible self-portrait) (1433) Jan van Eyck The Arnolfini Betrothal (1434) |Jan van Eyck Madonna of Chancellor Rolin (1435) A picture containing person, posing Description automatically generated A group of people in blue robes Description automatically generated with low confidence Anon, The Wilton Diptych (ca. 1395-99) Jan van Eyck The Madonna in the Church (ca. 1438-40) Gemäldegalerie, Berlin Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968) Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism (1951) ‘It has justly been remarked that the gentle animation that distinguishes the Early Gothic figures in the west facade of Chartres from their Romanesque predecessors reflects the renewal of an interest in psychology which had been dormant for several centuries; but this psychology was still based upon the Biblical—and Augustinian—dichotomy between the “breath of life'' and the “dust of the ground.” Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism, p. 6-7 image006 L: Sculptures of the Prophets from the West Front Royal Portal of Chartres Cathedral (mid-12th century CE) R: Tympanum sculptures of Vézelay Abbey (ca. 1120-30) The infinitely more lifelike —though not, as yet, portraitlike — High Gothic statues of Reims and Amiens, Strassburg and Naumburg and the natural — though not, as yet, naturalistic — fauna and flora of High Gothic ornament proclaim the victory of Aristotelianism. The human soul, though recognized as immortal, was now held to be the organizing and unifying principle of the body itself rather than a substance independent thereof. A plant was thought to exist as a plant and not as the copy of the idea of a plant.’ Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism, p. 6-7 Margrave Ekkehard II and Uta, Naumburg Cathedral (mid-13th century) ‘ …. we can observe, it seems to me, a connection between Gothic art and Scholasticism which is more concrete than a mere “parallelism" and yet more general than those individual (and very important) “influences" which are inevitably exerted on painters, sculptors, or architects by erudite advisers. In contrast to a mere parallelism, the connection which I have in mind is a genuine cause-and-effect relation; It comes about by the spreading of what may be called, for want of a better term, a mental habit …’ Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism p. 20 L: Portrait of St. Anselm of Canterbury, (1033-1109) Canterbury Cathedral (late 12th century CE) R: Pierre Abelard (1079-1142) and Héloise d’Argenteuil (ca. 1100-1163/64) L: The beginning of St. Anselm, Cur Deus Homo (1094-98) ‘ “Sacred doctrine"' says Thomas Aquinas, “makes use of human reason, not to prove faith but to make clear (manifestare) whatever else is set forth in this doctrine.” … We take it for granted that major works of scholarship, especially systems of philosophy and doctoral theses, are organized according to a scheme of division and subdivision, condensable into a table of contents or synopsis, where all parts denoted by numbers or letters of the same class are on the same logical level … However, this kind of systematic articulation was quite unknown until the advent of Scholasticism.’ Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism p. 29 and 32 Carlo Crivelli, Portrait of Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) (1476) L: Autun Cathedral, Last Judgement West Portal (ca. 1130) R: Amiens Cathedral, Last Judgement West Portal (120-1236) Kostel od jihozápadu Maria Laach Abbey (1158) Reims Abbey (1211-1345) Criticisms of Iconography • •Panofsky’s idea of intrinsic meaning was never clearly articulated – but it seemed to be about unconscious meanings and symbolic values of a culture • •However …. this was eclipsed by the social history of art in which such unconscious meanings are reinterpreted as ideology. But this means that iconology is perhaps blind to the political meanings of symbols • •Iconology easily degenerated into a mere cataloguing of symbols and images – and forcing them into pre-existing categories. It seems reluctant to accept ambiguity and contradiction. It treated artworks as puzzles to be ‘solved’ Dosso Dossi, Travellers in a Wood (1520) Giorgione, The Tempest (1508) ‘ … along with a complex allusive logic of learned reference, assumed so widely in recent studies, other developments must be emphasized: there are pictures with no subject at all (Dosso); there are those with ordinary surface subjects in which it is really correct, and not merely obscurantist, to reject symbolic depths (sleeping Child theme, Tempest); and there are also those which have capricious subjects determined by an artist's personal stress (Flagellation, Ficino theme). All these have been alleged by the "romantic" historians perhaps for the wrong reason that they disliked the "inartistic" exactitude of iconology, and perhaps muddling them together and applying them without justification. Yet if these intuitions are examined, it would seem equally wrong, and perhaps equally the result of cultural pressures, to apply too far the idea of cultural precision.’ Creighton Gilbert, ‘On Subject and Not-subject in Italian Renaissance Pictures,’ Art Bulletin, Sep., 1952, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Sep., 1952) p. 216 Svetlana Alpers, The Art of Describing (Chicago, 1983) p. xix Alpers, The Art of Describing, p. xx Alpers, The Art of Describing, p. xxi Paulus Potter Young Bull (1647) Alpers, The Art of Describing, p. 22 L: Jan Vermeer, View of Delft (1660-1661) R: Jan Vermeer, The Art of Painting (1666-68) Iconology as Social Memory Aby Warburg (1866-1929) tallinn128 tallinn127 tallinn126 Francesco Cossa East Wall of the Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara (1469-70) Primavera Birth of venus •It is possible to trace., step by step, how the artists and their advisors recognised the antique as a model that demanded an intensification of outward movement, and how they turned to antique sources whenever accessory forms – those of garments and of hair – were to be represented in motion. •It may be adduced that this evidence has its value for psychological aesthetics in that it enables us to observe, within a milieu of working artists, an emerging sense of the aesthetic act of “empathy” as a determinant of style.’ • •Warburg, ‘Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera’ in The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity p. 89 Ghirlandaio Birth of St M-Heracles-Amazon selinus_heracles_c_080202 Herculesandthehydrabyantoniodelpollaiolo O-Herc-Cecropes N-Herc-Drunk laocoon Friedrich Nietzsche (1873) Source: Bridgeman Laocoon, 1st century BCE Durer Orpheus 1494 tallinn124 Albrecht Dürer Death of Orpheus (1494) ‘I am by no means ashamed of being a Jew. On the contrary, I attempt to show to others that representatives of my kind are well suited to using their talents in order to fit in as useful members into the development of culture and the state.’ Aby Warburg, Letter to his mother, 26 January 1887 Warburg on military service.jpg Aby Warburg on military service in Karlsruhe (1892-1893) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/87/Legend_of_the_Jew_calling_the_Devil_from_a_Vessel_of_ Blood_Fac_simile_of_a_Woodcut_in_Boaistuau_s_Histoires_Prodigieuses_in_4to_Paris_Annet_Briere_1560. png Legend of the Jew calling the Devil from a Vessel of Blood, from Pierre Boaistuau, Histoires Prodigieuses (Paris, 1560) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Simonino.jpg L : Lucio Tosani - Medallion of the legend of Simonino di Trento (Palazzo Salvadori, Trento, 1515) R: The legend of Simon of Trent, from Hartmann Schedel, Weltchronik (1493) Schedel_judenfeindlichkeit.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Bund_Odessa_1905.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Pogrom_bialystok2.jpg ‘Death of Orpheus: Return of the eternally unchanging beast, genus: homo sapiens’ (Warburg) L: The Pogrom in Białystok, 1906 R: Members of the Jewish workers’ Bund, with colleagues murdered in the 1905 pogrom.