1. Ways of reading images How to use images as sources
Visual sources
Ways of reading images
How to use images as sources

2. Iconography
Reaction against formal analysis of visual images in terms of composition, colour, material at the expense of the subject matter (representation of a figure, story, idea)
The study of an image with particular focus on the intellectual content of the artwork

3. Erwin Panofsky: Studies in Iconology (1939)
3 Levels of interpretation or meaning:
Pre-iconographical description (natural meaning)
Iconographical analysis (conventional meaning)
Iconological interpretation (intrinsic meaning)

4. Practicing Iconography and Iconology
What is represented in the artwork?
Who are the figures represented and how are they identified?

5. -How is the artist’s depiction of the subject similar to or different from other artists’ depictions at the same time this was made, or at different times?
-Was it inspired by literary representations of this theme and how is it similar to or different from such representations?
-How do you account for these similarities and differences?

6. Titian, Sacred and Profane Love 1514, Galleria Borghese, Rome

7. Problems with Iconography
Indifference to social context (To whom does it have this meaning?)
Insufficient attention to variety of images (not all images are allegories)
Too literary or logocentric (illustrates content/ideas over forms)
Assumes cultural homogeneity of an age (Zeitgeist)

8. Bronzino, Allegory of Love, 1545, National Gallery, London

9. How to use images as sources: Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing: The uses of Images as Historical Evidence (London, 2001)
Art provides evidence for aspects of social reality not covered in texts.
Images not as realistic as they seem and often distort rather than reflect (variety of intentions)
Distortion = evidence of mentalities, ideologies, identities (image of self and others)

10. What do images do to their viewers?
persuades him/her to interpret in a certain way
to identify with the victim/victor
makes him/her an eyewitness
Gombrich, the eyewitness principle: representing only what could be seen from a particular point at a particular moment

11. Source criticism of images
Identify artist, his sources, type of account
Context, function
Some sources more reliable than others
Not unproblematic reflection of reality
Conventions have to be taken into account
Have to account for idealisations, nostalgia

12. Eugene Delacroix, Liberty guiding the people, 1830, Louvre, Paris