Brief introduction of iconology content

Iconology: the meaning and interpretation of visual art is divided into nine chapters. The first chapter is the introduction. The second chapter is an introduction to the history of image meaning research and a statement of related topics. The third chapter introduces the foundation of iconology and explains how the early iconology practitioners established the symbolic relationship of images step by step. The fourth chapter clarifies the core issues of traditional iconology: "symbolic" meaning and "anthropomorphic image". The fifth chapter begins to discuss modern iconology, with panofsky's art as the main axis. This paper expounds panofsky's position in Kant's research, as well as his artistic viewpoint and iconology method. The sixth chapter explains his profound interpretation method of iconology, and the seventh chapter discusses the development of contemporary iconology and various artistic problems after the image turn. The eighth chapter discusses the writing and interpretation of the new art history and the art history after the image turn, and puts forward the principle distinction between iconology, image science and visual culture. Chapter 9, When Salem Stopped Singing-The Origin of Image Interpretation, attempts to illustrate the challenges that images may bring to contemporary readers through two quite classic Kafka notes and a series of questions from Plato, Descartes, Calvino to Heidegger. The research field of modern iconology is very broad, which has three important aspects: ① Explain the essential content of the works, that is, the symbolic meaning mentioned by Panovsky. ② Investigate the classical tradition in western art and the continuation and change of classical motif in the development of art. ③ Investigate the changes of motif in form and meaning. Modern iconology involves many disciplines, such as formal analysis, sociology, psychology, psychoanalysis and so on, and the intersection with them is also a feature of modern iconology. Chang Lei

Iconology is an extremely important theoretical discipline in the research and practical exploration of modern visual art. It originated from the study of traditional iconology in the west in the19th century, and rapidly developed into one of the leading disciplines in the study of international art history in the first half of the 20th century, and became a brand-new research method of art history and art science. With the rapid development and progress of digital image technology, the creative form of visual art is undergoing another huge and extensive change, which makes the situation of image art and modern iconology extremely prosperous in the contemporary era, and the traditional visual art form can no longer be compared with it. This paper makes a preliminary description and discussion of this historical process, aiming at introducing the important significance of iconology to the construction of modern visual art discipline and showing the author's brand-new view on the artistic theoretical framework. The word "image" mainly comes from the translation of western art history, which usually refers to images, icons, pictures and their derivatives.

The word commonly used to express "image" in the later works of iconology is image, and several main meanings of image can be used to understand the concept of "image" in iconology: ① Psychological image and impression refer to the psychological process in which graphics constitute image cognition in the viewer's mind. (2) Statues, portraits and icons also contain the meaning of graphic programs, which are the same as icons. (3) Images or reproductions, reproductions and similar images, indicating the transmission performance of the images. (4) Psychological portrayal of the image. The derivative usage of image can also help us to understand the concept of iconology in a deeper level: the meaning of imagination is imaginable; Imaginative; Imagination means imagination and creativity. The common word of early "image" is icon, and iconography is iconography; Iconology is iconology. The original meaning of icon refers to the icon of the Greek Orthodox Church, so the main meaning of "image" is graphic program, so it is mostly translated as "spectral image", and iconology is translated as "spectral iconography" 1. The original meaning of the word picture is pictures, photographs, movies, images and so on. , refers to the concrete material existence of images, such as picture books are picture books; Picture tube means picture tube; French windows refer to windows with a view. The usage of pictures is rich, and they also have the meanings of mental image, image, description, narration and similar images, so they are often mixed with images. However, the use of pictures often refers to the concrete and actual image, which stays in the appearance of visual graphics, while the use of images is more abstract, and is mostly used to explore the psychological category of images, not just vision.

Other words can also be translated into images of related usage, such as tableau, presentation, view and figure. The original meaning of Tableau is picturesque and moving scene, which is extended to virtual image; The original intention of reproduction is symbol and expression, which refers to the connotation and significance expressed by images; Views refer to pictures; The original intention of graphics is numbers and calculations, so it refers to the nature and symbolic characteristics of graphics, such as triangular triangie graphics; ; Circular ring diagram.

The ancient research method in China was "putting pictures on the left and books on the right, and seeking images from pictures and books". Therefore, the word "image" has a long history in traditional culture. "Picture" refers to graphics, and "image" refers to the meaning in graphics, which is a metaphysical cultural concept with "picture" as the medium. For example, from the cognitive process of the philosophical meaning of Taiji diagram, we can sum up the progressive levels of "seeking images in the diagram": ① The first thing that comes into view is a combination diagram of Yin and Yang fish with black and white contrast, and the pattern with contradictory colors gives people the impression that the diagram has pictures; ; (2) Its basic shape is a circle, which is divided by an S-shaped curve, and the judgment conclusion of this graph is the graph characteristic graph; ; ③ Both circles and curves show that the basic symbolic meaning of graphics is eternal movement, which is the symbolic meaning of graphic representation; ; ④ The cultural semiotic basis of "the sky is round and the place is round" reminds the viewer that graphics represent "the sky is round"? Image comparison between the universe and nature, that is, associative view of graphic scene or tableau；; ⑤ The process that Taiji diagram triggers our cognition and thinking about the "unity of opposites" of traditional philosophy is imagery, that is, the "imagery" obtained by the ancients from the graphics; ⑥ Once this figure is handed down from history, it forms a stylized graphic symbol, and then it is understood and recognized by us, and an icon is formed in our mind. At this time, no matter how to copy, rewrite and deform, this icon has not changed because of the change of external form. At the same time, we should also pay attention to the difference between "image" and "reason", that is, the meaning of "image" is intuitive, has unspeakable characteristics, and has its independent value different from the theory of ci.

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Iconology originated from iconology research developed in the field of European art history in the19th century. At that time, iconology was a branch of art history, which paid attention to the theme content of artistic objects and the deep figurative meaning behind the theme, thus naturally reducing the attention to the form and expression style of artistic works, which ran counter to the traditional research methods of art history. Early iconology research was basically religious. Since the 20th century, the research field of iconology has been expanding, and it has been increasingly linked with other disciplines, and then it has developed into a new method: iconology, which is ready to replace the traditional research method of art history.

19 12 years, ABY· warburg (1866 ~ 1929), a German master of art history, read out his paper "Italian Art and International Astrology in the Carefree Palace in Flara" at the 10 International Art History Conference, in which he used. Warburg's new method pays attention to the interaction between content and form of works in the process of artistic research. His aim is to guide scholars to absorb the research results of other fields and bring art history into the whole of cultural history. The original motivation of the founder of iconology is to break through the boundaries of various disciplines in traditional art history research through this new method. Karl Lamprecht, a teacher historian in Warburg, is a maverick. He advocates "Great Cultural History" in historical research. He advocated that history should be regarded as a social psychological science, and politics, economy, law, art and religion should be regarded as a whole. At first, this ideological change was known as an "intruder". It always plays the role of artistic formalism critic, breaking the blockade between disciplines.

In the 20th century, a large number of talented iconology researchers emerged, such as Irving panofsky (1892 ~ 1968), Frith zaks ([Fritz Saxler]), [Rudolf Witkov], [Edgar Wendell] and so on. These famous art historians have systematically set the nature of iconology with a lot of diligent and practical research work: that is, to give a comprehensive, cultural and scientific explanation of the symbolic meaning of the artistic motif. They all worked in the Warburg Institute (Yuan Hua Treasure Library) founded in Hamburg and became the core force of the "Warburg School" famous for its iconology research. 5 This institute can be regarded as the first iconology research institution in the world (although it is not only an art history research institution) 【 Ernst Hans Joseph Gombrich 】, a young man, was recruited from his hometown of Vienna to take charge of sorting out the legacy of Warburg. Gombrich has become a prestigious master of art history and art theory. His outstanding contribution to the development of iconology is his special efforts to establish the interpretation standard of iconology. He believes that the central task of iconology should be to reconstruct the artist's original creative scheme, so as to find the original meaning of the work. In order to scientifically explain the "original meaning" of the works, Gombrich advocated fully studying the original background, environmental data, traditional practices and the author's real intention of the works, which to a great extent put forward a scheme to revise and innovate the popular iconology in terms of technical factors.

Pan Noszky's research achievement marks a new historical stage of iconology. "He promoted iconology from an auxiliary research method to an independent and mature academic department, which not only achieved a lot of results in practice, but also made a fairly complete exposition of iconology in theory." 6. He also moved to the United States in 1930s because of the war, where he started his art teaching and research, and later taught at new york University for a long time, bringing the research methods of iconology to the United States. With many students from panofsky in Hamburg moving to the United States, the influence of German traditional iconology in the United States is growing. After being taught or cooperated with panofsky, American scholars began to absorb and integrate panofsky's viewpoints and methods with other viewpoints and methods, and developed in a broader and deeper direction. For example, Werner Hoffman began to refer to the literary, philosophical and artistic criticism at that time to confirm his interpretation in his research in the 1960s, and began to try to reveal the symbolic forms in his works.

Pannovsky and his previous iconology research are still based on the traditional iconology research, so it is still a specialized subject of art history or cultural history, and its subject content is mostly limited to traditional works of art, especially the artistic creation cases in the Renaissance. In the period after panofsky, the inherent defects of traditional iconology research methods began to become increasingly prominent. First, it ignores the problems of form and style in artistic creation; The second is the practical significance of it and modern artistic creation, that is, the alienation between art and artistic theory. In the later period, the identity of iconology and iconology researchers changed fundamentally. They no longer appear as specialized traditional iconology or iconologists, but move towards more comprehensive modern art research under the inspiration of iconology methods, such as Mi Leide Metz and [Meyer Schapiro], students trained in panofsky, USA. Shapiro used a wider range of terms and concepts, such as psychology, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, existentialism and so on, when studying art problems with students at Columbia University, and their research topics began to point to modern art more.

This turning point occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, which was obviously related to the sudden development of western modern art at that time. [Jan Bialod Stoke] An outstanding Polish art historian has a wide range of research fields, often involving philosophy, art history, art theory and many other aspects. He creatively applied philosophical methods to iconology in his prose collection Style and Iconology Art Research published by 1960, and began to pay attention to the problems of images and styles. However, Gombrich's sense of touch is extraordinary. After completing two masterpieces, Art and Illusion and Sense of Order, he published Images and Eyes in the 1980s. In this book, his research topics have expanded to all fields of photography, sketching, advertising and other images. Through Gombrich's works, we can find that his academic research system of art is always open. It can be said that his research has "walked out of the magic circle of art history" 10 from a very early age and entered the art field with a more scientific philosophical spirit.

At present, iconology has become a leading branch in the research field of western art history, 1 1, and its theoretical model has also shifted from the research of art history to a more comprehensive art field such as art theory and art practice, thus forming a new discipline to examine contemporary art scholarship from a new perspective and method? Modern iconology. In his paper Symbolic Images 12, Gombrich showed his academic ambition beyond art history and traditional iconology, compared images with language for the first time, and discussed the significance of image symbols as a tool for human ideological communication from a philosophical perspective. This is a very great pioneering work, which can be regarded as the beginning of modern iconology: after more than a century of iconology and iconology research, and after the pioneering and accumulation of several generations of outstanding scholars, human beings began to realize the great significance and value of visual images for the development of human culture. The premise of this cognition is that there must be a way to help us overcome all obstacles in form and style, so that we can have a comprehensive view of all the meanings of visual art and culture. Only in this way can we not indulge in the trivial historical fragments provided by formalism 13 and forget the original intention of making visual images. William Michel, a professor at the University of Chicago, USA, is one of the most active representatives of modern portraiture. His Iconology: Images, Texts and Ideology, Remodeled Vision: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Age and Image Theory published in 1980s are all very important works about contemporary visual culture and modern iconology. Michelle's academic viewpoint can be said to be a typical representative of visual image culture in the post-modern period. His topic of concern has long gone beyond the general artistic phenomenon and began to explore the relationship between iconology and ideology in a deeper and more specific way. In the article "Image Turn", Michelle elevated the status of "image" to the highest point of culture. He firmly grasped Richard Rorty's theory about a series of turns in the history of philosophy. In the "17 ~19th century, philosophy turned to pay attention to ideas; After the contemporary enlightenment turned to pay attention to the words "14", the contemporary enlightenment turned to "images" to explore the possibility and reality of the development of contemporary thought to the state of "visible ideology". The background of Michelle's view is that contemporary social culture has unanimously recognized the arrival of the "image age", and mankind has entered a brand-new "image age". The main media way for people to obtain information and exchange ideas has changed from "language" to "image". British scholar [John B] and other five people mentioned the view that "watching precedes language" at the beginning of the book "The Way to Watch" published in 1972. They think that in the way of obtaining information, the reading of "image" takes precedence over the way of "language". Michelle talked about this in a more detached way. He believes that the more important practical information is that "image representation" is affecting every level of culture with unprecedented strength, from the most profound and subtle thinking to the most vulgar and shallow production of mass media. " 17, and he thinks that watching is not only general but also better than watching. Neither language nor words can fully explain the visual experience, that is, they are not equal in fundamental ability. Therefore, he pointed out that the key measure of iconology reconstruction should be to strive to go beyond the comparative study of language art and visual art, so that iconology "enters the basic construction of human three-dimensional", and his purpose is to revive iconology. He believes that "image theory and ideological discourse must meet critically" 18.

The neglect of art form by early traditional iconology researchers has been criticized and criticized in a considerable scope. Formal criticism that criticizes the essence of iconology still speaks from time to time. However, due to the advent of the "image age", "images" have been transformed into the main media form in the process of ideological communication. Compared with those sounds, they seem to be submerged. The vitality of the development of modern iconology lies entirely in its thorough openness and comprehensiveness, that is, all-pervasive and all-encompassing. "Image" is a research method and theoretical key that can be created to "arbitrarily" break through the boundaries of traditional disciplines and reorganize, and its academic core is the most forward-looking and creative modern cultural science. It is precisely because the starting point is to break through the shackles of art forms and study other issues related to art forms that when image scholars first used the word "image", the basic concept of image was a visual work that transcended the differences in general forms. That is, including painting, photography, film and television, decorative design, architectural gardens and even behavioral devices, all visual artistic works represent the visual connotation. When using the word "image", contemporary scholars have begun to refer to the image works completed by new technologies, because the efficiency of reproduction and dissemination of these image works is much higher than that of traditional visual art works.

The development of domestic iconology research and video art practice exploration is extremely uneven. Iconology has experienced a period of translation and discussion, mainly through a limited number of scholars who study the history of western art, such as Mr. Fan Jingzhong19; Or citing the achievements of iconology to assist some research projects of other disciplines, it can be said that a special, systematic and appropriate research system has not yet been formed. Practice of Image Art Due to the rapid development of image technology and the formation of image product market, image art talents have formed a huge team. In the 1980s, Mr. Long Xizu, a famous photographer, took the lead in realizing the significance of popularizing modern iconology and video art in China, and took the lead in establishing a special iconology research institution and video art education base in Minzu University of China? Central university for nationalities image research institute. Although the "image" promoted by Mr. Long is based on photography, plane picture editing and digital image post-stage, it is by no means limited to one mode, emphasizing that students should master an image consciousness beyond general differences, not just one or two professional skills.

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The aesthetic value of modern iconology research lies in the concept of "image logic", which makes all humanities disciplines around human visual culture begin to conduct comprehensive and holistic research. It makes artists get rid of the isolated and narrow space of self-development that only pays attention to style in the past, and has the opportunity to take care of the creative behavior itself from a more complete cultural context. Therefore, the word "image" is meaningful in itself: compared with "art", it means that the elements of a work are mainly "image" rather than "technology" or "form". Iconology criticizes "formalism" rather than "artistic form", because iconology thinks that the text value of artistic works is unified and close to the real intention of artists when they create (including the creative behavior of artistic schools in a period of time), so the creation itself can not only pay attention to the formal language style but ignore the aesthetic core of works' images. Understanding the concept of "image" is inseparable from the cognition and application of iconology in various historical stages. The early image refers to the traditional concrete meaning of various graphics, that is, "spectral image"; Then there is Gombrich's new concept of adding images. He believes that the study of image content should also include the actual intention of the image author, which will inevitably lead to interest in some art forms. The breakthrough of "modern iconology" reached a peak, and "image" changed from "art" to "culture". This development is rooted in the development of modern science and technology, so modern iconology no longer simply criticizes artistic formalism like traditional iconology.

Art theory is the result of sorting and rationalizing the problems in the process of art history review. How people treat art history, that is, "the construction of art history view", determines how people will determine art theory and how to develop art and culture. In the whole process of art history, before modern times, it was almost always in the era when the quality of works was determined by skills, that is to say, whoever mastered the production technology would have the initiative in the market of "video products", which was caused by the long-term lag of reproduction and communication technology in history. Therefore, in a long historical stage, people's minds have always been dominated by the original skills of works of art, and artists and most theorists are most keen on discussing the topic of skills. The rise of humanistic culture has promoted the diversified development of artistic aesthetic thoughts, but in the initial stage, it can't be built without specific skills and forms, so the traditional research ideas of art history often make the derived aesthetic thoughts unable to escape the constraints of artistic forms. Take the development of fine arts in China as an example: from the Six Dynasties to the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the mainstream of artistic behavior of painting changed from a court aristocrat to a scholar. However, no matter whether they are aristocrats or literati, the class brand of their creative subjects is obvious, and the development of art history is always controlled by social groups that monopolize production technology. The so-called "institutional painting" and "literati painting" are the result of the monopoly of technology communication. The main reason for this monopoly is the lag of reproduction and communication technology: crude original reproduction can not completely reproduce the original appearance of artistic works; Conceptualized apprentice routines can't really reflect the artistic essence of the master. Therefore, in that era, the inheritance of art and technology could only be limited to a small scope, and the portal of mentoring became the main form of artistic life continuation. In the era of backward reproduction and communication technology, the visual art works that artists, collectors and the general public can see generally have distinct "formal differences". The success of modern iconology lies in that it transcends the limitations of general history, and the aesthetic significance that researchers care about is the beauty beyond the differences of artistic forms. Based on the aesthetic thought of "image", we can see what we can't see in the academic research of traditional art? Many works of art are quite different in techniques and forms, but there are more similar aesthetic factors. The study of traditional art history is also based on the needs of early academic art education, and researchers often focus on formal differences, so the works of traditional art history we see are often the evolutionary history of style schools or the biographies and chronicles of artists. Iconology focuses on the complete cultural information conveyed by works of art, that is, first of all, it studies the real psychology and practical purpose of artists in the process of local aesthetic creation at that time. Therefore, it is more interested in the reproduction and dissemination of image works, eager to understand the real use and social significance of art works, explore the development of art history, and regard the change of reproduction and dissemination forms as an epoch-making tool in art history.

If the history of traditional visual art based on the principle of formal difference is rearranged according to "image logic", its essence will be the development history of "communication" of visual art, and its historical period division should be based on the development of reproduction technology, artistic exchange and communication forms. For example, the religious missionary system has been playing an important role as a visual art medium for a long time in the Middle Ages. The vigorous development of China book prints since the Ming and Qing Dynasties was also created by the market demand of citizens for cultural consumption and communication under the impetus of urban economic prosperity. At the same time, the rise of printmaking has promoted the development of sketch art, and the works of sketch masters like Chen Laolian and Ren Weichang can also be copied in large quantities and widely spread to all walks of life. In this way, the history of image art looks more like a cultural history in the field of visual communication, and its epoch-making historical stages are exactly five major changes in the way of human visual communication: ① primitive period? The imitative copying and reconstruction of image program icons, such as the imitative behavior of rock paintings, pottery, pottery figurines and other formal norms, has actually become a tool to transmit political, religious and life information between tribes and people, and tribal politics has also formed a concrete and infectious image. ② Mausoleum art period? The collective recognition and establishment of image architecture and symbol expression norms (at that time, it was equivalent to three generations from ancient Egypt and China to Qin and Han Dynasties), but we only got the text of the history of mausoleum art, so it is very appropriate to name this period "Mausoleum Art". At this time, there is a class division, and there is a distinction between slave owners and slaves, nobles and civilians. The so-called artists are basically slaves at this time. The image of the mausoleum at this time is obviously the embodiment of the concept of gods, life and death and life customs of the local human groups at that time. It is an interpretation of the spiritual life of the tomb owner after his death, so the standardization of image structure has been strictly implemented. Because the image is the symbol of class identity in this period, the social significance of "symbol" is prominent, which is why the Egyptian tomb murals with the same style can convey 1000 years. (3) religious period? Image is presented in the form of a specific cultural gene. As an important propaganda tool in the process of religious missionary, images are spread to a wider area and mixed with different cultural genes. For example, Indian Buddhist art had a great influence on the development of China art in the Six Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties. In this process, the most striking events broke out in the history of human culture in the Middle Ages, and the formation of these specific events has a very important relationship with the media nature of religion. ④ Early stage of urban economic development? The market of image products began to form, and the image copying and dissemination in religious period was still mainly the imitation of image programs or the entrainment of original images, but "mechanical copying" did not fully recover. After the invention of printing, video works began to be copied from the original works on a large scale, and its communication quality and efficiency made a fundamental breakthrough. ⑤ Digital and Information Age? With the development of technology, image information can be completely copied, and human beings have mastered the technology that can best reproduce real images? Photography, video recording. Driven by market forces, image has changed from the original "consumer goods" to the role of "visual information industry", and image has become an industry and a kind of capital. In the social and economic circulation, its value is becoming more and more informational, and the direct profit of the image (such as the sale of ancient paintings) is relatively reduced, replaced by the indirect commercial profit after the completion of information dissemination. This change occurred at the same time as a similar change in artistic form. In the era of digital reproduction, works of art are infinitely promoted with high efficiency, high quality and low cost. The appearance of digital technology makes the production, reproduction and dissemination of images embark on the road of system industrialization.

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The cultural connotation of images obviously goes beyond the traditional definitions of aesthetics and artistic issues. Of course, this transcendence is based on the breakthrough of general formal beauty. Because of this, the methods of image and iconology, as comprehensive cultural and scientific research and interpretation tools, have become popular in contemporary academic circles, such as philosophy, psychology, astrology, theology, archaeology, cultural anthropology and ethnology. In the study of contemporary art history, the word image has been widely used and very popular. For example, He Xilin of the Department of Art History of the Central Academy of Fine Arts used a lot of words such as "image structure" and "image style" when studying tomb murals in the Han Dynasty. The application of image architecture and image style, on the one hand, refers to the problem of artistic forms such as composition, and at the same time, pays more attention to the symbol of thought, aesthetic consciousness and traditional cultural forms, which is the combination of theme content and form. For example, the composition mode and modeling means of a tomb mural in Han dynasty have strong characteristics of the times and regions. The establishment and spread of its composition pattern is not because of its aesthetic characteristics (form), but often determined by the local people's belief in souls and immortals at that time and some practical purposes of completing these murals. In other words, the formal features we see are not "pure forms", but are closely related to certain social and cultural ideologies.

There may be many people who think that there is no need to establish a new discipline-iconology, nor to attach so much importance to its value and position in modern art, because they think that iconology is just a replica of the relationship between content and form in aesthetics and art theory. When discussing some artistic problems, image scholars will indeed encounter the above difficulties. However, traditional art history and art research pay too much attention to the study of the differences of art forms, especially since the formation of art education in universities, artists' interest in the study of traditional art forms far exceeds the creation of new image works. As Gombrich advocated, we should know the whole truth of artistic creation. As the basis of artistic theory, artistic creation is by no means isolated from social culture. Therefore, iconology is such a work that integrates artistic creation with the whole social culture and tries to seek the overall truth of creation. Inevitably, the "image age" has really arrived, and the image information entering modern people's minds far exceeds the predecessors in history in both quality and quantity, and the transformation and development speed of its communication tools is unimaginable by traditional thinking methods. In the face of such an era of great change, I believe everyone is looking forward to earth-shaking changes in social culture. We believe that the result of cultural change means that more people will face more equal opportunities and more attractive challenges.