MEANING IN THE VISUAL ARTS Papers in and OE Art History by ERWIN PANOFSKY Doubleday Anchor Books Doubleday & Company, Garden City, N.Y. Inc. I ICONOGRAPHY AND ICONOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF RENAISSANCE ART Iconography is that branch of tlie history of art which itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to their form. Let us, then, try to define the distinction between subject matter or meaning on the one hand, and form on the other. When an acquaintance greets me on the street by lifting his hat, what I see from a formal point of view is nothing but the i concerns details within a configuration forming part of the general pattern of color, lines and volumes which constitutes world of vision. When I identify, as I automati- change of certain my cally do, this configuration as an object (gentleman), and the change of detail as an event (hat-lifting), I have already overstepped the limits of purely formal perception and entered a sphere of subject matter or meaning. The meaning thus perceived is of an elementary and easily understandable nature, and we shall call it the factual meaning; it is apprehended by simply identifying certain visible forms with certain first objects known to me from practical experience, and by identifying the change in their relations with certain actions or events. Now the objects and events thus identified will naturally produce a certain reaction within myself. From the way my acquaintance performs his action I may be able to sense whether he is in a good or bad humor, and whether his feelings towards me are indifferent, friendly or hostile. These psychological nuances will invest the gestures of my acquaintance with a further meaning which we shall call expressionaL 2,6 from the factual one in that it is apprehended, not by by "empathy." To understand it, I need a certain sensitivity, but this sensitivity is stiH part of my practical experience, that is, of my everyday familiarity with objects and events. Therefore both the factual and tie expressional meaning may be classified together: they constitute It differs simple identification, but the class of primary or natural meanings. However, my realization that the lifting of the hat stands a greeting belongs in an altogether different realm of interform of salute is peculiar to the Western world and is a residue of mediaeval chivalry: armed men used to remove their helmets to make clear their peaceful intentions and their confidence in the peaceful intentions of others. Neither an Australian bushman nor an ancient Greek could be expected to realize that the lifting of a hat is not only a for pretation. This practical event with certain expressional connotations, but also a sign of politeness. To understand this significance of the gentleman's action I must not only be familiar with the prac- world of objects and events, but also with the more-thanpractical world of customs and cultural traditions peculiar to a certain civilization. Conversely, my acquaintance could not feel impelled to greet me by lifting his hat were he not contical scious of the significance of this act. As for the expressional connotations which accompany his action, he may or may not be conscious of them. Therefore, when I interpret the lifting of a hat as a polite greeting, I recognize in it a meaning which may be called secondary or conventional; it differs from the primary or natural one in that it is intelligible instead of being sensible, and in that it has been consciously imparted to the practical action by which it is conveyed. And finally: besides constituting a natural event in space and time, besides naturally indicating moods or feelings, besides conveying a conventional greeting, the action of my acquaintance can reveal to an experienced observer all that make up his "personality." This personality is conby his being a man of the twentieth century, by his national, social and educational background, by the previous history of his Me and by his present surroundings; but it is also distinguished by an individual manner of viewing things goes to ditioned and reacting to the world which, if rationalized, would have 2 2,S Iconography and Iconology: be called a philosophy. In the isolated action of a polite all these factors do not manifest themselves comprehensively, but nevertheless symptomatically. We could not construct a mental portrait of the man on the basis of this single action, but only by co-ordinating a large number of similar observations and by interpreting them in connection to greeting with our general information as to his period, nationality, class, intellectual traditions and so forth. Yet all the qualities which, this mental portrait would show explicitly are iminherent in every single action; so that, conversely, every single action can be interpreted in the light of those plicitly qualities. The meaning thus discovered may be called the intrinsic meaning or content; it is essential where the two other kinds of meaning, the primary or natural and the secondary or conventional, are phenomenal It may be defined as a unifying principle which underlies and explains both the visible event and its intelligible significance, and which determines even the form in which the visible event takes shape. This intrinsic as much above the sphere of conscious volition as the expressional is beneath this meaning sphere. Transferring tne results of this analysis from everyday life to a work of art, we can distinguish in its subject matter or meaning tibe same three strata: meaning or content is, normally, 1. and that Primary of natural subject matter, subdivided into factual expressional. It is apprehended by identifying pure forms, is: certain configurations of line and color, or certain peculiarly shaped lumps of bronze or stone, as representations of natural objects such as human beings, animals, plants, houses, tools and so forth; by identifying their mutual relations as events; and by perceiving such expressional qualities as the mournful character of a pose or gesture, or the homelike and peaceful atmosphere of an interior. The world of pure forms thus recognized as carriers of primary or natural meanings may be called the world of artistic motifs. An enumeration of these motifs of the 2. work of would be a pre-iconographical description art. Secondary or conventional subject matter. It is apprefigure with a knife represents hended by realizing that a male An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art 29 Bartholomew, that a female figure with a peach in her hand is a personification of veracity, that a group of figures St. seated at a dinner table in a certain arrangement and in certain poses represents the Last Supper, or that two figures fighteach other in a certain manner represent the Combat of ing Vice and Virtue. In doing this we connect artistic motifs and combinations of artistic motifs (compositions) with themes or concepts. Motifs thus recognized as carriers of a secondary or conventional meaning may be called images, and combinations of images are what the ancient theorists of we invenzioni; The are wont identification of fact, when we them such images, stories stories and and art called 1 allegories. allegories is the normally referred to as "iconography." In we loosely speak of "subject matter as opposed to or convenchiefly mean the sphere of secondary domain of what form," to call is tional subject matter, viz., the world of specific themes or as concepts manifested in images, stories and allegories, opposed to the sphere of primary or natural subject matter 1 Images conveying the idea, not of concrete and individual persons or objects ( such as St. Bartholomew, Venus, Mrs. Jones, or Windsor Castle), but of abstract and general notions such as Faith, Luxury, Wisdom, etc., are called either personifications or symbols (not in the Cassirerian, but in the ordinary sense, e.g., the Cross, or the Tower of Chastity). Thus allegories, as opposed to stories, may be defined as combinations of personifications and/ or symbols. There are, of course, many intermediary possibilities. person A. A may be portrayed in the guise of the person B. ( Bronzino s Andrea Doria as Neptune: Biker's Lucas Paumgartner as St. George), or in the customary array of a personification (Joshua Reynolds' Mrs. Stanhope as "Contemplation*); portrayals of concrete and individual persons, both human or mythological, may be combined with of a personifications, as is the case in countless representations A story may convey, in addition, an allegorieulogistic character. cal idea, as is the case with the illustrations of the Ovide Moralist or be conceived as the "prefiguration" of another story, as in may the "Biblia Pauperism or in the Speculum Humanae Sdvationis. Such superimposed meanings either do not enter into the content of the work at all, as is the case with the Of ide MoralisS illustra- which are visually indistinguishable from non-allegorical miniatures illustrating the same Ovidian subjects; or they cause an ambiguity of content, which can, however, be overcome or even turned into an added value if the conflicting ingredients are molten in the heat of a fervent artistic temperament as in Rubens' "Galerie tions, de Medicis." i 30 Iconography and Iconology; "Formal analysis" in Wolfflin's of motifs and combinations of an analysis largely motifs (compositions) ; for a formal analysis in the strict sense of the word would even have to avoid such expressions as "man,** "horse," or "column," let alone such evaluations as "the ugly triangle between the legs of Michelangelo's David" manifested in sense artistic motifs. is or "the admirable clarification of the joints in a human body." obvious that a correct iconographical analysis presup- It is poses a correct identification of the motifs. If the knife that enables us to identify a St Bartholomew is not a knife but a corkscrew, the figure is not a St. Bartholomew. Furthermore, important to note that the statement "this figure is an it is image of the Bartholomew" implies the conscious intention of represent St Bartholomew, while the expressional of the figure may well be unintentional. St* artist to qualities 3. Intrinsic meaning or content. apprehended by ascerwhich reveal the basic of a nation, a period, a class, a religious or philopersuasion-qualified by one personality and conIt is taining those underlying principles attitude sophical densed into one work. Needless to say, these principles are manifested by, and therefore throw light on, both "compositional methods" and "iconographical significance." In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, for instance (the earliest examples can be dated around 1300), the traditional type of the Nativity with the Virgin Mary reclining in bed or on a couch was frequently replaced by a new one which shows the Virgin kneeling before the Child in adoration* From a compositional point of view this change means, rougjdy speaking, the substitution of a triangular scheme for a rectangular one; from an iconographical point of view, it means the introduction of a new theme to be formulated in writing by such authors as Pseudo-Boaaventure and St, Bridget But at the same time it reveals a new emotional attitude peculiar to the later phases of the Middle Ages. A really exhaustive interpretation of the intrinsic meaning or content might even show that the technical procedures characteristic of a certain country, period, or artist, for instance Michelangelo's preference for sculpture in stone instead of in bronze, or the peculiar use of hatchings in his drawings, are symptomatic of the same basic attitude that is discernible in aU the other specific quali- An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art ties of his style. 31 In thus conceiving of pure forms, motifs, images, stories and allegories as manifestations of underlying we interpret all these elements as what Ernst Cas- principles, has called "symbolical" values. As long as sirer we limit our- selves to stating that Leonardo da Vincfs famous fresco shows a group of thirteen men around a dinner table, and that this men represents the Last Supper, we deal with the of art as such, and we interpret its compositional and iconographical features as its own properties or qualifications. group of work But when we try to understand it as a document of Leonardo's personality, or of the civilization of the Italian High Renaissance, or of a peculiar religious attitude, we deal with the work symptom of something else which expresses countless variety of other symptoms, and we intercompositional and iconographical features as more of art as a itself in a its pret particularized evidence of this "something else." The discovery and interpretation of these "symbolical" values (which are unknown to the artist himself and may even emphatifrom what he consciously intended to express) is the object of what we may call "iconology" as opposed to often cally differ "iconography." [The suffix "graphy" derives from the Greek verb graphein, "to write"; it implies a purely descriptive, often even statistical, method of procedure. Iconography is, therefore, a description and classification of images much as ethnography is a description and classification of human races: it is a limited and, as it were, ancillary study which informs us as to when and where specific themes were visualized by which specific motifs. It tells us when and where the crucified Christ was draped with a loincloth or clad in a long garment; when and where He was fastened to the Cross with four nails or with three; how the Virtues and Vices were represented in different centuries and environments. In doing all this, iconography is an invaluable help for the establishment of dates, provenance and, occasionally, authenticity; and it furnishes the necessary basis for all further interpretation. It does not, however, attempt to work out this interpretation for itself. It collects and classifies the evidence but does not consider itself obliged or entitled to investigate the genesis and significance of this evidence: the interplay between the various "types"; i 32 Iconography and Iconologyj the influence of theological, philosophical or political ideas; the purposes and inclinations of individual artists and patrons; the correlation between intelligible concepts and the visible form which they assume in each specific case. In short, iconography considers only a part of aH those elements which enter into the intrinsic content of a work of art and must be made explicit if the perception of this content is to articulate and communicable, [It is because of these severe restrictions which become common usage, especially in this country, places upon the term "iconography" that I propose to revive the good old word "iconol- wherever iconography is taken out of its isolation and integrated with whichever other method, historical, psychoogy'* we may attempt to use in solving the riddle of the sphinx. For as the suffix "graphy" denotes something descriptive, so does the suffix "logy" derived from logos, which means "thought" or "reason** denote something interlogical or critical, pretative. "Ethnology," for instance, is defined as a "science of human races" by the same Oxford Dictionary that defines "ethnography" as a "description of human races," and Webster explicitly warns against a confusion of the two terms inas- much as "ethnography is properly restricted to the purely descriptive treatment of peoples and races while ethnology denotes their comparative study." So I conceive of iconology an iconography turned interpretative and thus becoming an integral part of the study of art instead of being confined to the role of a preliminary statistical survey. There is, howas ever, admittedly some danger that iconology will behave, not ethnology as opposed to ethnography, but like astrology like as opposed to astrography.] Iconology, then, is a method of interpretation which arises analysis. And as the correct identi- from synthesis rather than fication of motifs is the prerequisite of their correct iconographical analysis, so is the correct analysis of images, stories and allegories the prerequisite of their correct iconological interpretation unless we deal with works of art in which the whole sphere of secondary or conventional subject matter is eliminated and a direct transition from motifs to content is effected, as is the case with European landscape painting, still life and genre, not to mention "non-objective" art. An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art Now, how do we three these levels, 33 achieve "correctness" in operating on pre-iconographical description, icono- graphical analysis, and iconological interpretation? In the case of a pre-iconographical description, which keeps within the Hmits of the world of motifs, the matter seems simple enough. by lines, colors can be The objects and events whose representation and volumes constitutes the world of motifs we have identified, as seen, on the basis of our practishape and be- cal experience. Everybody can recognize the havior of human beings, animals and plants, can tell an angry face from a jovial one. It is, and everybody of course, possi- ble that in a given case the range of our personal experience not wide enough, for instance when we find ourselves con- is fronted with the representation of an obsolete or unfamiliar tool, or with the representation of a plant or animal unknown we have widen the range of our praca book or an expert; but we do experience by consulting not leave the sphere of practical experience as such, which to us. In such cases to tical informs us, needless to say, as to what land of expert to consult Yet even in this sphere we encounter a peculiar problem. Setting aside the fact that the objects, events and expressions depicted in a work of art may be unrecognizable owing to artist, it is, on a correct pre-iconographical primary subject matter, by the incompetence or malice aforethought of the principle, impossible to arrive at description, or identification of indiscriminately applying our practical experience to the work of art. Our practical experience is indispensable, as well as sufficient, as it material for a pre-iconographical description, but does not guarantee its correctness. A pre-iconographical description of Boger van der Weyden's Three Magi in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin would, of course, have to avoid such terms as "Inf ant Jesus," etc. But it would have to mention that "Magi/* the apparition of a small child is seen in the sky. do we (Fig. i) How know be an apparition? That it is surrounded with a halo of golden rays would not be sufficient proof of this assumption, for similar halos can often be observed in representations of the Nativity where the Infant Jesus is real. That the child in Roger's picture is meant to be that this child is meant to * 34 Iconography and Iconology: an apparition can only be deduced from the additional fact that he hovers in mid-air. But how do we know that he hovers in mid-air? His pose would be no different were he seated on a pillow on the ground; in fact, it is highly probable that Roger used for his painting a drawing from life of a child seated on a pillow. The only valid reason for our assumption that the child in the Berlin picture is meant to be an apparition is the fact that he is depicted in space with no visible means of support But we can adduce hundreds of representations in which human beings, animals and inanimate objects seem to hang loose in space in violation of the law of gravity, without thereby pretending to be apparitions. For instance, in a miniature in the Gospels of Otto III in the StaatsbibMothefc of Munich, a whole city is represented in the center of an empty space while the figures taking part in the action stand on solid 2 ground (Fig. a). An inexperienced observer may well assume that the town is meant to be suspended in mid-air by some Yet in this case the lack of support does not a miraculous invalidation of the laws of nature. The imply is the real of Nain where the resurrection of the youth city city sort of magic. took pkce. In a miniature of around 1000 "empty space'* does not count as a real three-dimensional medium, as it does in a more realistic period, but serves as an abstract, unreal background. The curious semicircular shape of what should be the base line of the towers bears witness to the fact that, in the more realistic prototype of our miniature, the town had beem situated tation in on a hilly terrain, but was taken over into a represenwhich space had ceased to be thought of in terms of perspective realism. Thus, while the unsupported figure in the van der Weyden picture counts as an apparition, the floating city in the Ottonian miniature has no miraculous connota- These contrasting interpretations are suggested to us by the "realistic" qualities of the painting and the "unrealistic" qualities of the miniature* But that we grasp these qualities in the fraction of a second and almost automatically must not tion. induce us to believe that we could ever give a correct prework of art without having iconographical description of a * G. Leidinger, Das sogenannte Evangeliar Ottos PL 36. III, Munich, An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art divined, as it were, its historical 'locus/* 35 While we believe we are identifying the motifs on the basis of our practical experience pure and simple, we really are reading "what we that see" according to the manner in which objects and events are expressed by forms under varying historical conditions. In doing this, we subject our practical experience to a corrective 8 principle which may be called the history of style. Iconographical analysis, dealing with images, stories and allegories instead of with motifs, presupposes, of course, much with objects and events which we acquire by practical experience. It presupposes a familiarity with specific themes or concepts as transmitted through literary sources, whether acquired by purposeful reading or by oral tradition. Our Australian bushman would be unable to recognize the subject of a Last Supper; to him, it would only convey the idea of an excited dinner party. To understand the iconographical meaning of the picture he would have to familiarize himself with the content of the Gospels. When it comes to representations of themes other than Biblical stories more than that familiarity or scenes from history and mythology which happen to be to the average "educated person," all of us are Aus- known tralian bushmen. In such cases we, too, must try to familiarize 8 To correct the interpretation of an individual work of art by a "history of style," which in turn can only be built up by interpreting individual works, may look like a vicious circle. It is, indeed, a circle, though not a vicious, but a methodical one ( cf. E. Wind, Das Experiment und die Metaphysik, cited above, p. 6; idem, "Some Points of Contact between History and Science/* cited ibidem). "Whether we deal with historical or natural phenomena, the individual observation assumes the character of a "fact" only when it can be rekted to other, analogous observations in such a way that the whole series "makes sense/' This "sense" is, therefore, fully capable of being applied, as a control, to the interpretation of a new individual observation within the same range of phenomena. If, however, this new individual observation definitely refuses to be interpreted according to the "sense" of the series, and if an error proves to be impossible, the "sense" of the series will have to be reformulated to include the new individual observation. This drculus meihodicw applies, of course, not only to the relationship between the interpretation of motifs and the history of style, but also to the relationship between the interpretation of images, stories and allegories and the history of types, and to the between the interpretation of intrinsic meanings and the history of cultural symptoms in general. relationship i 36 Iconography and Iconology: ourselves with what the authors of those representations had read or otherwise knew. But again, while an acquaintance with specific themes and concepts transmitted through literary sources is indispensable and sufficient material for an icono- graphical analysis, it does not guarantee its correctness. It is a correct iconographical analyjust as impossible for us to give sis by indiscriminately applying our literary knowledge to the motifs, as it is for us to give a correct pre-iconographical description by indiscriminately applying our practical experience to the forms. A picture by the Venetian seventeenth-century painter Francesco Maffei, representing a handsome young woman with a sword in her left hand, and in her right a charger on which rests the head of a beheaded man (Fig. 3), has been published as a portrayal of Salome with the head of John the 4 Baptist. In fact the Bible states that the head of St. John the Baptist was brought to Salome on a charger. But what about the sword? Salome did not decapitate St. John the Baptist with her own hands. Now the Bible tells us about another handsome woman in connection with the decapitation of a man, namely Judith. In this case the situation is exactly reversed. The sword in Maffefs picture would be correct because Judith beheaded Holofernes with her own hand, but the charger would not agree with the Judith theme because the text explicitly states that the head of Holofernes was put into a sack. Thus we have two literary sources applicable to our picture with equal right and equal inconsistency. If we should interpret it as a portrayal of Salome the text would account for the charger, but not for the sword; if we should interpret it as a portrayal of Judith the text would account for the sword, but not for the charger. should be entirely We were we depend on the literary sources alone. Fortunately we do not As we could supplement and correct our practical experience by inquiring into the manner in which, under varying historical conditions, objects and events were expressed by forms, viz., into the history of style, just so can we supplement and correct our knowledge of literary sources by inquiring into the manner in which, under varying at a loss * to G. Fiocco, Venetian Painting of the Seicento Florence and New York, 1929, PL 29. and the Settecento, An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art historical conditions, specific 37 themes or concepts were ex- pressed by objects and events, viz., into the history of types. In the case at hand we shall have to ask whether there were, before Francesco Maffei painted his picture, any unquestionable portrayals of Judith (unquestionable because they would include, for instance, Judith's maid) with unjustior any unquestionable portrayals of Salome (unquestionable because they would include, for instance, fied chargers; Salome's parents) with unjustified swords. And lo! while we cannot adduce a single Salome with a sword, we encounter, in Germany and North Italy, several sixteenth-century paint- 5 ings depicting Judith with a charger; there was a "type" of "Judith with a Charger," but there was no "type" of "Salome with a Sword." From this we can safely conclude that Maffei*s picture, too, represents Judith, and not, as had been assumed, Salome. We may further ask why artists felt entitled to transfer the motif of the charger from Salome to Judith, but not the motif of the sword from Judith to Salome. This question can be answered, again by inquiring into the history of types, with two reasons. One reason is that the sword was an established and honorific attribute of Judith, of many martyrs, and of such virtues as Justice, Fortitude, etc.; thus it could not be transferred with propriety to a lascivious girl. The other reason is that during the fourteenth and fifteenth, centuries the charger with the head of St. John the Baptist had become an isolated devotional image (Andachtsbild) especially popular in the northern countries and in North Italy (Fig. 4); it had been singled out from a representation of the Salome story in much One of the North Italian pictures is ascribed to Romanino and is preserved in the Berlin Museum, where it was formerly listed as "'Salome" in spite of the maid, a sleeping soldier, and the city of Jerusalem in the background (No, 155); another is ascribed to Romanino's pttpil Francesco Prato da Caravaggio (listed in the Berlin Catalogue), and a third is by Bernardo Strozzi, who was a native of Genoa but active at Venice about the same time as Francesco Maffei. It is very possible that the type of "Judith with a Charger" originated in Germany. One of the earliest known instances (by an anonymous master of around 1530 related to Hans Baldung Grien) has been published by G. Poensgen, "Beitrage zu s Baldung und seinem 1937, P- 36 & KJreis," Zeitschrift -fur Kunstgeschidhte, VI, i 3& same way on the bosom the as the of the Iconography and Iconology: St. John the Evangelist resting Lord had come to be singled out from group of the Last Supper, or the Virgin in childbed from the Nativity. The existence of this devotional image established a fixed association of ideas between the head of a beheaded man and a charger, and thus the motif of a charger could more easily be substituted for the motif of a sack in an image of Judith, than the motif of a sword could have penetrated into an image of Salome. Iconological interpretation, finally, requires something more than a familiarity with specific themes or concepts as transmitted through literary sources. When we wish to get hold of those basic principles which underlie the choice and presentation of motifs, as well as the production and interpretation of images, stories and allegories, and which give meaning even to the formal arrangements and technical procedures emwe an cannot to find individual text which ployed, hope would fit those basic principles as John 13:21 ff. fits the iconography of the Last Supper. To grasp these principles we need a mental faculty comparable to that of a diagnostician a faculty which I cannot describe better than by the rather discredited term "synthetic intuition," and which may be better developed in a talented layman than in an erudite scholar. However, the more subjective and irrational this source of interpretation (for every intuitive approach will be conditioned by the interpreter's psychology and "Weltanschauung"), the more necessary the application of those correctives and controls which proved indispensable where only iconographical analysis and pre-iconographical description were concerned. When even our practical experience and our knowledge of may mislead us if indiscriminately applied to how much more dangerous would it be to trust literary sources works of art, our intuition pure and simple! Thus, as our practical expehad to be corrected by an insight into the manner in rience which, under varying historical conditions, objects and events were expressed by forms (history of style); and as our knowlliterary sources had to be corrected by an insight into manner in which, under varying historical conditions, specific themes and concepts were expressed by objects and events (history of types); just so, or even more so, must our edge of the An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art 39 synthetic intuition be corrected by an insight into the manner in which, under varying historical conditions, the general and essential tendencies of the human mind were expressed by themes and concepts. This means what specific may be called a history of cultural symptoms or "symbols" in Ernst Cassirer's sense in general The art historian will have to check what he thinks is the intrinsic meaning of the work, or group of works, to thinks is which he devotes his attention, against the intrinsic meaning of as many what he other documents of civilization historically related to that work or group of works, as he can master: of documents bearing witness to the philosophical, and social tendencies of the personality, period or country under investigation. Needless to say that, conversely, the historian of political political, poetical, religious, life, poetry, religion, philosophy, and social situations should of works of art. It is in the search for make analogous use intrinsic ciplines meanings or content that the various humanistic dismeet on a common plane instead of serving as hand- maidens to each other. In conclusion: when strictly (which is we wish to express ourselves very of course not always necessary in our normal talk or writing, where the general context throws light on the meaning of our words), we have to distinguish between three strata of subject matter or meaning, the lowest of which is commonly confused with form, and the second of which is the special province of iconography as opposed to iconology. In whichever stratum we move, our identifications and interdepend on our subjective equipment, and for very reason will have to be supplemented and corrected by an insight into historical processes the sum total of which pretations will this may be called tradition. have summarized in a synoptical table what I have tried to make clear thus far. But we must bear in mind that the neatly differentiated categories, which in this synoptical table I seem to indicate three independent spheres of meaning, refer in reality to aspects of one phenomenon, namely, the work of art as a whole. So that, in actual work, the methods of approach which here appear as three unrelated operations of research merge with each other into one organic and indivisible process. Iconography and Iconology: OBJECT OF ITNTEBPBETATION Primary or natural subject matter (A) factual, (B) expressional constituting the i world of n ACT OF ESTTEKPKETATION Pre-iconographical description (and pseudo-formal analysis). artistic motifs. Secondary or conventional Iconographicd analysis. subject matter, constituting the world of images, stories and allegories. ni Intrinsic meaning or content, constituting the world of "sym- Iconological interpretation. bolical" values. n Turning now from the problems of iconography and iconology in general to the problems of Renaissance iconography and iconology in particular, we shall naturally be most interested in that name of phenomenon from which the very the Renaissance The derived: the rebirth of classical antiquity. earlier Italian writers about the history of art, such as is Lorenzo Ghiberti, Leone Battista Alberti, and especially Giorgio Vasari, thought that classical art was overthrown at the beginning of the Christian era, and that it did not revive until it served as the foundation of the Renaissance The style. reasons for this overthrow, as those writers saw it, were the invasions of barbarous races and the hostility of early Christian priests and scholars. In thinking as they did the early writers were both right and wrong. They were wrong in so far as there had not been a complete break of tradition during the Middle Ages. Classical conceptions, literary, philosophical, scientific and artistic, had survived throughout the centuries, after particularly had been deliberately revived they under Charlemagne and his
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