Page 7 - World of Art magazine (2000)

out by Hegel-aimed mainly to artistic representation. There- known by artists, and to what
classify empirically the different fore we can consider this disci- extent this symbolic interpreta-
arts in their specify, too. pline the study of the historical, tion agrees with the historical
in oUr modem times, not only social, religious, philosophical, position and the personal ten-
a philosophical, but even a psy- and cultural content, of which dencies of each artist and to PaGnes
chological approach is absolutely subjects and images are direct his particular creative disposi-
inevitable to aim at the defi- expression, even if sometimes tion. To achieve this we must try
nition and classification of the unrelated to the one who has to penetrate the essential sense
artistic phenomenology and at used those subjects. The role of of a work of art so as to be
the identification of their values. iconology is, in a certain way, able to grasp the unit that com-
When considering a work of lined up with the iconographic poses it. This is possible when
art we should identify the con- method of Aby Warburg who we manage to grasp and to con-
nections, the interdisciplinary studies the programmatic, liter- sider the whole of the moments become not only the history of
requests between it and the ary and learned aspects of works of its emanation: subject, icon, semiotics but of all those disci-
thought of that particular histor- of art in “contraposition” with and formal element. plines that in the past shared
ical moment, but not only that, formal analysis. It is related to Icnology, as being essentially the field of signs and symbols
as it is possible to contribute to the theory of ’symbolic forms’: it interdisciplinary and strictly - semantics, logic, rhetoric,
the enlightenment of either a pic- is an analysis which goes beyond related to general symbolism, investigation, aesthetics, philos-
torial or literary work by com- the explicit meanings of works has become in this way the best ophy, ethnology, psychoanaly-
paring authors of different peri- of art, beyond their ultimate example of the solidarity and sis, poetics -. and of some of
ods and belonging to trends, and essential content, identify- complementary of all the inter- their subjects named, from time
as T.S. Eliot established in his ing those fundamental principles pretations in their mutual, inter- to time, imitation and beauty,
essays of poetic criticism. which reveal the basic line of pretative and analytic task of education and pleasure, tropes
The re-visitation of these disci- a nation, a period, social class, the various artistic languages, and figures, condensation and
plines, the following attempt of a religious or philosophical con- both rational and hype rational, movement.
reconciliation, can certainly give cept, unconsciously qualified by which, in the course of time, Through the study of the his-
raise to origin new elaborations a personality or abridged in one have expressed the complicated tory of art, of signs and sym-
in order to stem the intellectual work. Iconology aims at inter- relationship of Man with Nature bols, we put forward as a pos-
waste of the present, probably pretation those symbolic values and the number of images of sibility the research of a plural
due just to the frantic pursuit of sometimes ignored by the artist Man himself that Nature and typological thought, which
success. himself and which may differ, reflects. Iconology aims at maintains the differences with-
The contribution of art criti- even manifestly, from what he clearly expounding principles, out emphasizing it. A meth-
cism should awake an incentive consciously wanted to express. methods, structures and at odological principle where the
to art itself, should be a reason The subject of a symbol can defining the terminology of cer- reading of an artistic text is
for a new vital sap especially in a reveal a meaning consciously tain artistic phenomenology’s intended as a description and an
historical time such as this one, bestowed by the artist, if this contributing to develop its study. interpretation at the same time:
when men witness powerless the desired significance is at the as PrevioUsLY stated, the a course into space of an artistic
’Faustian’ devastation of nature, same time also deliberately methodological approach to a personality.
and the decadency of post-indus- hidden; here the iconographical symbol is not less important to tHe reLations between art,
trial society. analysis is necessarily trans- artistic creations than the anal- literature and philosophy are
Art can not absolutely be pas- formed into a sort of decipher- yses of its anthropological and a continuum: from Ficino and
sive towards these problems. ing. technological functions. In fact Leonardo to Rilke and Rodine,
The methodologies of a critical The significances have simply from the point of view of epis- to Beckett and Bacon, up to
study and research for a correct turned from “unconscious” into temology the process of symbol- the contemporary minimalists.
understanding should be deeply secret ones. The ideas projected izing intervenes on many levels Therefore art criticism must not
involved in the analysis about by the artist into his work of experience, from the compli- be a merely structural construc-
the connection among art, include the interpretation of the cated mechanism of our percep- tion (without art), but a vital,
nature, reality and anthropology artistic phenomenon itself or, tions to the highest degrees of dynamic portrait of a work
in order to further examine the at least, they should not be elaboration and arrangement of where the many types, not the
considerations on philosophical transcended in the research of our way of representing the many substances, are the sub-
aesthetics, in this way bringing the intrinsic, inner significance. world. jects because, otherwise, there
out the difficult relationship of Anyway it is required to reveal The evolution of linguistics, would be established a factious
an artist’s style of life in the the philosophical prejudices, psychology, history of religions hierarchy that can not abso-
modem world. It could be a sig- which lie behind the visual form. and history of art, the problems lutely take place.
nificant contribution to art (and in order not to reduce the of signs, of symbols and myths PreciseLY in the name of
its history) in order to give it the value of the interpretation of the have in fact been considered in interdisciplinary we should
strength to be “the soul of the single artistic event it is nec- their relationship with the meth- deeply commit ourselves to
world and the intelligence to be essary for the approach to be ods and principles of their vari- overcome the ’perception’ of
the meaning of reality”. sensible and rational, facing the ous interpretations. In this way artistic language that distin-
a science like iconology specific culture in which a par- the study of the history of art guishes a creative experience,
rightly aims, in a transverse way, ticular artistic work is inserted. can not be separated from any of towards a broader dimension of
to understand and consolidate We need to wonder whether or the other humanistic disciplines, the imaginative production, able
the connections that exist among not the symbolic meaning of because it is indispensable for to maintain the irreducible plu-
the various disciplines. In this a given motif is usual in a cer- a broader and correct compre- rality of the ways of sense, by
way it contributes to keeping tain figurative tradition, whether hension of the various fields of virtue of a research which pre-
art in a position of privilege. an iconographical interpretation human knowledge and of reality serves a work from the particu-
As Erwin Panofsky pointed out, may be justified with certain itself. If a symbol represents larity of fashions and of tem-
iconology is the study of the pur- texts or if it consistent with the one of the elements generally poral restrictions, proposing a
pose that belongs to images and ideas that can be alive in that common to the various disci- reading for inner courses, easily
to the selected subject in their period and can presumably be plines then the history of art can understood by everyone.

spEcial issuE 2000 world of art 5