Knowra Iconography Iconography Iconography identifies and interprets the subjects, symbols, and recurring motifs represented in images. It uses visual details and cultural context to understand what images depict and signify.
Iconographic attributes : Objects or features associated with a figure that help identify the figure or clarify a scene. A particular attribute, such as a key beside Saint Peter, can identify a depicted subject.
Iconology : The interpretation of images as expressions of the broader cultural, intellectual, and historical forces that shaped them. Iconology moves beyond identifying motifs to infer a work’s underlying worldview.
Annunciation : The Christian subject depicting the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she will bear Jesus. Its lilies, book, and enclosed setting recur as clues to the scene’s meaning.
Cesare Ripa : An Italian writer whose 1593 book Iconologia catalogued visual personifications and their attributes. His handbook codified attributes that artists could use to depict abstract ideas.
Ambiguity : The condition of allowing more than one plausible meaning or interpretation. A motif may support several readings when evidence does not settle its intended meaning.
Attribute (art history) : A distinctive object or feature used in art to identify a person, deity, or allegorical figure. Attributes are the concrete clues that support identification in iconographic analysis.
Semiotics : The study of signs, sign systems, and how they produce meaning. Its theories explain how visual signs can signify subjects and ideas.
Saint Jerome in His Study : A recurring Christian image of Saint Jerome studying or translating scripture, often accompanied by a lion. The lion and scholarly setting demonstrate how attributes identify a saint.
Iconologia : A 1593 emblem book by Cesare Ripa describing visual personifications of virtues, vices, and other concepts. It provided a practical reference for identifying allegorical figures and their attributes.
Historical context : The social, political, religious, and intellectual conditions surrounding an event or work. Context can change whether an apparent symbol was conventional, personal, or incidental.
Show all 26