Telling Tales: Iconography & Authenticity

Iconography is from the Greek words 'Image' and 'to write'. It is the identification and description of the content of images, the study of symbols depicted in a work or art design. Traditionally, these symbols derive from a readily recognisable, common currency of cultural experience.

WJT Mitchell, Art Historian: 'Iconography is about the rhetoric of images,' that is, it helps us to know 'what images say and what to say about images.'

All these symbols have a meaning and they all determine peace:
Dove - depicts something in a real world, it is instantly recognisable as opposed to abstract
Peace - colourful and abstract
White Flag - relies on colour to show a message, peace.

Peter Burke, Historian: Images 'speak', they are 'designed to communicate'. 'To interpret the message it is necessary to be familiar with the cultural codes'. We all share an understanding of context.

Richard Howells, Visual Culture, 2003: 'Paintings have meanings that the artist would expect the viewer to understand. Successful communication of these meaning, however, it depends upon shared cultural conventions between painter and viewer'.

Byzantine Portraiture: We are able to trace iconography through history. Symbols within the painting depicted an idea and it is no longer about representing reality, it was an idea through symbols, making connections through earthy material. The lamb around his neck suggests that he might be a shepherd OR he is possibly Jesus, who was seen as a good shepherd - using our knowledge of the context.

Iconology: 

• The study of meaning contained within these iconographic symbols, i.e. the interpretation of the content of the images
• The branch of art history that addresses the description, analysis and interpretation of images
• Iconology looks at more than the face value of the symbol, taking into account its context - both historical and cultural, as well as in relation to the artist or designers broader oeuvre of work

Importance of 'historical and theoretical context' - Erwin Panofsky - iconologist - Studies in Iconology (1939). Using visual evidence to 'unlock' meaning. Looking as opposed to just seeing. 

Take a painting for example:

• The first stage of analysis: What do we see at face value? What genre is it? What is it a painting of? Is there any text?
• Second stage: What do we see when we read between the lines? What else can we say about it? What details are evident?
• The effective communication of meanings through visual devices requires shared cultural conventions between viewer and reader and an understanding of context (the circumstances that form the setting for an even, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood).

Van Gogh, The Card Players, 1894-5
It is a painting that we can start to develop a recognised abstract idea of, using light and colour it is not super realistic. People are sat around a table, we can also read into the title to make an assumption of what the two men are doing. We don't know their relationship, where they are or who is winning the game of cards. There are a lot of other questions that the viewer has.

Metaphor

A type of analogy where meaning is derived through association, comparison or resemblance. It equates two things in order to make an impact, for example: this image is a s sense that they are trying to tell us that the car is strong. The rhino is where the engine would be, it triggers ideas and is an example of a visual metaphor.

Two images:
One shows an apple growing into a tree with typography displaying the idea of the seed growing into ideas and creativity. We are then left to interpret the other image without type. The viewer can make decisions about what the image means: a pair of glasses that also appear as an egg timer, it shows associations around time, patience and could also suggest a sense of emergency (time runs out) The glasses suggest intelligence, suggesting to the viewer that with patience comes wisdom.

Symphony in Slang, Tex Avery, 1951
He uses an idea of a metaphor and makes it come first, a metaphor is all of the meaning, he has inverted the way of using a metaphor.

The Creative Act, Marcel Duchamp, 1957
'All in all, the Creative Act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications'.
The audience is just as crucial, it is about visual understanding.

Desperate Housewives, Title Sequence 
It introduces famous works of art, all that have iconographic meaning. Hidden meanings, to show how we interpret the characters in desperate housewives.

The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, Jan Van, Eyck 1434
Decode the image and ask questions, every element of the painting has a story to tell. Whilst taking a glance at the painting we don't notice key elements like we would when we look into the painting - Is the woman in the painting pregnant? Is it actually a wedding portrait? It shows a mirror in the background that reflects the room, opposing questions about where the artist stands as he isn't in the mirror.

The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein, 1533
The painting shows religious and scientific symbols, it is a detailed portrait but we can also see a distorted skull - it is distorted to the viewer and communicates messages, an interpretation of death.

Erwin Panofsky - Three levels or 'strata; of iconological meaning:

• Primary - see colour, shape, read text
• Conventional - relies on common understanding and shared knowledge 
• Intrinsic - what does it all mean? start to make assumptions, right or wrong - for example the image is a man that is lifting his hat, a good gesture and considered polite and friendly

Authentic

• Unique
• Common
• Copy
• True/False
• Real
• Imitation
• Genuine
• Counterfeit
• Original 

What does it mean to be authentic?

For many the search for authentic provides a powerful source of meaning in a secular age, allowing a person a unique personal identity in a world that seems alienating and conformist. This demand for authenticity - the honest or the real - is one of the most powerful movements in contemporary life, influencing our moral outlook, political views and consumer behaviour. 

'Craftsmanship names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake'. Richard Sennett

In seeking to make objects which avoided the appearance of fine art, the Minimalists attempted to remove the appearance of composition from their work. To that end, they tried to expunge all signs of the artists guiding hand or thought processes - all aesthetic decisions - from the fabrication of the object. For Donald Judd, this was part of a Minimalism's attack on the tradition of 'relational composition' in European art, one which he saw as an out-moded rationalism. Rather than parts of an artwork being carefully, hierarchically ordered and balanced, he said that they should be 'just one thing after another'. 

The idea of removing them from the thought processes, creating a distance and how that might effect how authentic something might be.