Visual codes in art from the historical point of view.

Assist. Prof. Mehmet KahyaoğluYaşar University

The Venus of Willendorf28,000-25,000 BCLimestone, painted in red 11.1 cmNaturhistorisches Museum, Vienna

Perforated relief of King Ur-NansheUr, 3rd Dynasty (2600-2330 BC) Limestone, 39 x 46 cmLouvre Museum, Paris

Victory Stele of Naram-Sin2,254-2,218 BCLimestoneh. 2 mt. Louvre Museum, Paris

Law Code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon (detail)ca. 1,780 BCBazalth. 2.25 mt.Louvre Museum, Paris

Panofsky vs. Mannheim

Sociology of culture that Mannheim was to develop during the same period as Panofsky codified the methodology of iconography and iconology.

Both Panofsky and Mannheim start from, but seek to go beyond, Riegl’s concept of Kunstwollen in developing a theoretically coherent account of the relationship between cultural objects and their larger contexts.

The incipient sociological elements in Mannheim’s ‘Interpretation of Weltanschaung’ afforded Panofsky a more practical interpretative schema than that developed in his earlier account of the concept of Kunstwollen, but the social elements theoretically essential toMannheim’s conceptualization remain a residual category in Panofsky’s interpretive framework.

Mannheim was able to characterize ‘worldview’ in more systematically historical and sociological terms, largely by building on precisely the psychological and collective dimensions of the concept of Kunstwollen that Panofsky had rejected.

In his essay on ‘The concept of artistic volition’, Panofsky sought to establish an ‘Archimedean point’ for the interpretation of individual works of art in intrinsic terms, rather than by reference to such extrinsic phenomena as developmental stylistic or typological series.

Images are made to communicate.

Leonardo da Vinci. Last Supper. 1495–1498. Tempera on gesso, pitch and mastic. 460 cm × 880 cm. Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.

What does an Aborigine think of that painting?

Hieronymus Bosch. The Garden of Earthly Delights.1480-1490 or 1503-1504. Oil-on-wood triptych. 220 cm × 389 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid

Robert Capa (1913-1954). Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936

Timothy O'Sullivan, Harvest of Death (4th July, 1863)

Margeret Bourke-White (1904-1971), Gandi. 1946

Bryan Organ Diana, Princess of Wales1981Acrylic on canvas177.8 x 127 cm. National Portrait Gallery, London

Sir Joshua Reynolds. George Augustus Eliott, Lord Heathfield. 1787. Oil on canvas. 142 x 113.5 cm. National Gallery, London, UK.

Hyacinthe Rigaud. Louis XIV. 1701Oil on canvas. Musée du Louvre, Paris

J-S. Duplessis. Louis XVI. c. 1770Oil on canvas. Musée Carbavalet, Paris

Fyodor Shurpin. The Morning of Our Native Land. 1948. Oil on canvas. State Gallery of Tretyakov, Moscow.

Hunting scene from the tomb of Nebamun. c. 1350British Museum, London

Art gives clues …

Robert Capa (1913-1954). Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936

But it may not be real as it may seen…

Eugène DelacroixPaganini1831, Karton üzerine yağlıboya

Jean-Auguste-Dominique IngresPaganini1819, Karakalem

Jean-Auguste-Dominique IngresTurkish Bath1862, Tuval üzerine yağlıboya, Museé du Louvre, Paris

OBJECT OF INTERPRETATION ACT OF INTERPRETATION EQUIPMENT FOR INTERPRETATION

CORRECTIVE PRINCIPLE OF INTERPRETATION(Hist. of Tradition)

http://w3.gril.univ-tlse2.fr/Proimago/LogiCoursimage/panofsky.htm

OBJECT OF INTERPRETATION ACT OF INTERPRETATION EQUIPMENT FOR INTERPRETATION

CORRECTIVE PRINCIPLE OF INTERPRETATION(Hist. of Tradition)

I Primary or natural subject matter (A) factual, (B) expressional -

constituting the world of artistic motifs

Pre-iconographical description

Practical experience (familiarity with objects and events).

History of style (insight into the manner in which, under varying historical conditions, objects and events were expressed by forms).

OBJECT OF INTERPRETATION ACT OF INTERPRETATION EQUIPMENT FOR INTERPRETATIONCORRECTIVE PRINCIPLE OF INTERPRETATION(Hist. of Tradition)

I Primary or natural subject matter – (A) factual, (B) expressional - constituting the world of artistic motifs

Pre-iconographical description

Practical experience (familiarity with objects and events).

History of style (insight into the manner in which, under varying historical conditions, objects and events were expressed by forms).

II Secondary or conventional subject matter, constituting the world of images, stories and allegories.

Iconographical analysis

Knowledge of literary sources (familiarity with specific themes and concepts).

History of types (insight into the manner in which, under varying historical conditions specific themes or concepts were expressed by objects and events).

OBJECT OF INTERPRETATION ACT OF INTERPRETATION EQUIPMENT FOR

INTERPRETATION

CORRECTIVE PRINCIPLE OF INTERPRETATION(Hist. of Tradition)

I Primary or natural subject matter – (A) factual, (B) expressional -

constituting the world of artistic motifs

Pre-iconographical description

Practical experience (familiarity with objects and events).

History of style (insight into the manner in which, under varying historical conditions, objects and events were expressed by forms).

II Secondary or conventional subject matter, constituting the world of images, stories and allegories.

Iconographical analysis

Knowledge of literary sources (familiarity with specific themes and concepts).

History of types (insight into the manner in which, under varying historical conditions specific themes or concepts were expressed by objects and events).

III Intrinsic meaning or content, constituting the world of "symbolical" values.

Iconological interpretation

Synthetic intuition (familiarity with the essential tendencies of the human mind), conditioned by personal psychology and "Weltanschauung"

History of cultural symptoms or "symbols" in general (insight into the manner in which, under varying historical conditions, essential tendencies of the human mind were expressed by specific themes

Caravaggio, The Crucifixion of St. Peter,1601Oil on canvasSanta Maria del Popolo, Rome