The invisible divine in the history of art. Is Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968) still relevant for decoding Christian iconography?

Abstract

References to the divine have been frequent in the history of Christian art. As examples, this article surveys the symbolism of light and gold, the rhetoric of gesture, and the theatricality of the pictorial space. Sacred art is closely linked to biblical, liturgical and theological texts which are full of metaphorical expressions of transcendent realities. Since artists, patrons and viewers considered these texts authoritative, they must be consulted to interpret artworks correctly. This study argues that Catholic theology and the magisterium have constantly called for references to the divine. As a theoretical framework, this image theology helps to interpret the art-historical data with new questions that tourists and communicators today usually do not ask. This is because Christian art mediates the meaning of divine revelation, which is not self-explanatory. It needs to be decoded with a method interested in both images and texts. Erwin Panofsky has presented such a method. His ‘iconology’ consists of three steps for describing, analyzing and interpreting images. This article claims that the interpretation of Christian art is a prime example of the ongoing applicability of Panofsky’s method as a tool for decoding iconography in pastoral, academic and social media communications, and examines a selection of best practices in such communications.