Iconographic Tradition Research Articles

Milton's Imagery and the Visual Arts: Iconographic Tradition in the Epic Poems

The Description for this book, Milton's Imagery and the Visual Arts: Iconographic Tradition in the Epic Poems, will be forthcoming.

Milton's Imagery and the Visual Arts: Iconographic Tradition in the Epic Poems. Roland Mushat Frye

Milton's Imagery and the Visual Arts: Iconographic Tradition in the Epic Poems. Roland Mushat Frye

Book Review: Milton's Imagery and the Visual Arts: Iconographic Tradition in the Epic Poems

Book Review: Milton's Imagery and the Visual Arts: Iconographic Tradition in the Epic Poems

The Iconography of Food and the Motif of World Order in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay

Robert Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay celebrates conceptions of world order, the happy state, decorum, and temperance. It has not been recognized that the play's numerous references to food are perfectly in keeping with the iconographical tradition and help Greene dramatize what has been called the Elizabethan World View. My purpose in this study is to examine Greene's use of food in the light of this iconographical tradition, not to establish sources, but to demonstrate the iconographical and intellectual background of the connections Greene makes between food and world order in the

Ladies, Gentlemen, and Skulls: Hamlet and the Iconographic Traditions

T HE SCENE OF HAMLET CONTEMPLATING the skull of Yorick in the graveyard of Elsinore is one of the most famous in the Shakespearean canon. For actors and playgoers alike, it is a lasting favorite, and it has been engraved on the popular mind as the most memorable single image of the melancholy Prince. As far as we can now tell, Shakespeare's presentation of that scene was a striking innovation on the London stage when he introduced it in or about the year 1600.1 But Shakespeare was not creating de novo. There was a long and very popular tradition in which a young man was shown contemplating a skull, or commenting upon it, and scores of examples of this visual topos exist in various art forms. The greatest of these is Frans Hals's oil of A Young Man with a Skull [Figure I ]-which was once confidently identified as Hals's painting of Shakespeare's Hamlet. That identification has now given way to a recognition that-there was a broad and encompassing tradition which included both Shakespeare and Hals.2 That tradition was well known to the audiences for whom Shakespeare wrote. It was readily accessible in England as on the Continent through prints

A Portrait of Antonia Minor in the Fogg Art Museum and Its Iconographical Tradition

Among the numismatic, glyptic and sculptured portraits of Antonia Minor, three portrait types may be distinguished: 1) youthful and idealized (e.g. Ara Pacis, Juno-Ludovisi, coins of Crete and Thessalonica), 2) youthful and individualized (e.g. Malta, Leptis Magna, coins of Alexandria and Corinth), and 3) mature and individualized (e.g. Louvre, Erbach, Fogg Museum, coins of Rome and Clazomenae). Youthful, individualized portraits of the Malta/Leptis Magna type, which have recently been identified as Antonia's daughter Livilla, are here reassigned to Antonia Minor. The chronology and interrelation of the three portrait types are based, to a large extent, upon the development of Antonia's hairstyle in the more than thirty portraits discussed in this paper. The coiffure of Antonia's youth is characterized by a central part and round, braided hairknot, as in fig. 4 from the Ara Pacis. A variant of this hairstyle may be seen in figs. 12–14—where a series of flat pincurls are added along the forehead facing the middle part. In Antonia's middle age a hairloop and eventually a simple ponytail replace the hairknot (cf. figs. 1–3, 16–19). During the transition period forehead curls are at first retained (cf. fig. 11), but these are gradually abandoned in favor of two or three tiny curls tucked into the waves of the coiffure (figs. 16–17, 19) or of no curls at all (figs. 1–3, 18). The portrait of Antonia in the Fogg Art Museum (figs. 1–3) represents the final stage in the iconography of Antonia Minor; it may even copy the portrait which Claudius, in honor of his deceased mother, had carried through the Circus in a carpentum, probably on the anniversary of her birthday.

The Tomb of Leo XI by Alessandro Algardi

Alessandro Algardi's Tomb of Leo XI in the Vatican (Fig. 1) is a work of subtle beauty that has received relatively little critical attention.1 It has suffered from being considered primarily in comparison with Bernini's Tomb of Urban VIII. Far from a more classical restatement of Bernini's formula, however, Algardi's tomb is a specifically Medicean monument that follows a different iconographic and stylistic tradition.

The chivalric dragon: hagiographic parallels in early Spanish romances

The chivalric dragon: hagiographic parallels in early Spanish romances

Herakles, Peisistratos and Eleusis

In RA 1972, 57–72 (‘Herakles, Peisistratos and Sons’) I tried to demonstrate that the exceptional popularity of Herakles in Athenian art of the Peisistratan period was due to some degree of deliberate identification between tyrant and hero, both appearing as special protégés of the goddess Athena, and that this association was mirrored by certain changes and innovations in the iconographic tradition of Herakles as represented on Athenian, and only Athenian, works of art of those years. The most explicit association was expressed in Peisistratos' return to Athens after his second exile, in a chariot accompanied by a mock Athena (Hdt. i, 60). This episode was mirrored by or inspired a change in the usual iconography of Herakles' Introduction to Olympus by Athena, on foot, to a version in which the hero is shown with the goddess in a chariot. Taken with other evidence of Athenian interest in the hero, their priority in accepting him as a god and promotion of his worship, which can plausibly be attributed to this same time, and a number of other scenes which seemed likely to reflect some political rather than purely narrative interest, the case appeared to the writer strong, though circumstantial, and in the total absence of any indications in surviving literary sources it was not possible to judge, except in the light of common sense, which parts of the case were strongest, which better discarded.

Spenser's Hermaphrodite and the 1590 Faerie Queene

The image of the Hermaphrodite with which Spenser presents the union of Amoret and Scudamour in his original conclusion to Book IIIof The Faerie Queene draws on two distinct iconographic traditions: the Ovidian scene of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis which had become a symbol of marriage in Renaissance emblem books, and the single androgynous figure found in antique Roman statues which bear an uncertain relationship to Platonic notions of perfection. Such a conflation enables Spenser to emphasize and complete patterns of imagery which he has been developing throughout Book III: Britomart as patroness of Chastity has assumed an Amazonian role which stresses her androgynous self-sufficiency, but she has been repeatedly shown as tormented by visions of love. Like Guyon in Hook II, she fulfills her immediate quest when she liberates a victim of enchantment; but although she differs from Guyon in her destined participation in British history, she remains aware that within the context of the Book of Chastity she can be wholly chaste only at the price of her continuing incompleteness as a woman. Spenser's poem in its three-book form shares with other Elizabethan works a preoccupation with the paradoxical identification of love and death, a recognition that the self can triumph over change only by accepting its own destruction in marriage.

Chaucer's House of Fame and the Ovide Moralise

/C HAUCER'S portrait of his variant has long been recognized as unique in that it presents Fame not merely as the goddess of rumor and report (a figure derived from Aeneid, IV, 173192), nor as a personification of worldly glory, but as a judge whose function is to assign men to their places in history. The iconographical tradition of Fame is strikingly devoid of anything that might have served Chaucer as inspiration. Fame was not among the usual medieval personified abstractions, and does not appear in art until the later middle ages.' Even then there is little to suggest the idea of Fame as arbiter. Early illustrations of Petrarch's Trionfi show Fama, like the other abstract figures, mounted on a chariot in procession rather than stationed in court.2 Much of Chaucer's description of the Houses of Fame and Rumor is drawn from Ovid's version of Fama's dwelling in Metamorphoses, XII, 39-63; but in illuminated manuscripts of the Ovide moralise, the early fourteenth-century translation and allegorization of the Metamorphoses, we find no illustration of this passage which strikes the modern reader as an ideal set piece for illustration. No doubt the reason for this is that the passage on Fame as it occurs in Ovid and in the medieval translation is nothing more than an allegory in the classical sense; that is, it does not form part of the narrative proper but is instead an extended rhetorical ornament, a figure of thought, a lively and concrete way of expressing the statement that news of the impending invasion reached Troy before the

On the Classicism of the “Classic” Phase of Franco-Saxon Manuscript Illumination

The reintroduction of classical forms and their early Christian variants into the vocabulary of artists during the Carolingian period has been of great interest to scholars. Symptomatic of the classical revival in Carolingian manuscript illumination is the appearance of a kind of Hellenistic-Roman illusionism in the treatment of the human figure, backgrounds, and landscapes; the substitution for the geometric and zoomorphic ornament associated with Merovingian and Insular art of plant ornament, particularly the acanthus motif; and the use of certain types of classically derived architectural motifs. Most significant for some scholars is the renewed interest in the iconographic tradition of classical mythology, which is reflected in the paintings of some Carolingian works.1

The Forgotten Early Medieval Artist

Through its often impeccably precise and scientifically objective methodology, art history has immensely enriched our knowledge of past cultures and of man, the creator. But perhaps precisely because the world of the art historian is a well-ordered one, the image of the artist which he has created sometimes appears to be that of a well-behaved clerk carefully recording iconographic traditions, styles, social patterns, art theories, and trends in taste. Such an image has been too often the fate of the early Medieval artist. He has left us no biographies, no theoretical treatises, and no critical works. The art historian, forced to work with the art objects alone, and little or no written collateral material, has had to provide the artist with a hypothetical set of attitudes. However, using these as a basis for the systematic analysis of a given problem may have occasionally led the scholar to compound the confusion inherent in certain questions which were already more than sufficiently complex to begin with. The point that I wish to make here is that the reliance on such a hypothetical set of attitudes as an analytical tool is useful only if it takes a sympathetic view of the artist as an at least often competent professional within the context of a given tradition, and sometimes beyond that as an imaginative creative man. It would obviously not be possible to deal with this question in early Medieval art as a whole in a short article, and 1 will restrict myself to a few problems in manuscript illumination.

Addenda to Robert Rosenblum's “The Origin of Painting: A Problem in the Iconography of Romantic Classicism”

In his most interesting and well documented article, Mr. Rosenblum suggests that Alexander Runciman's The Origin of Painting (1771) is “likely to be the first work to proclaim this new iconographic tradition”1 (the tradition of the legend of the Corinthian maid, or Dibutade).

CompassioandCo-Redemptioin Roger Van Der Weyden'sDescent from the Cross

ROGER van der Weyden's Descent from the Cross in the Escorial occupies a unique place in the history of art. It is the only composition by an old Flemish master that is truly monumental, not only in actual size (220 × 262 cm.), but in sentiment and composition. The painter, furthermore, has boldly broken with a firmly established iconographic tradition; he has conceived the Descent from the Cross afresh. His composition—“der glucklichste Griff, der je einem niederlandischen Maler im funfzehnten Jahrhundert gelungen ist”1—created a profound impression. No other painting of its school has been copied or adapted so often;2 and the high price at which, in 1556, the Regent of the Netherlands, Mary of Hungary, secured the picture (which had adorned the main altar of the Church of Our Lady at Louvain until that time) for Philip II of Spain attests to its fame even then.3

Riemenschneider'sSt. Jeromeand His other Works in Alabaster

IN 1946, the Cleveland Museum of Art added to its collection of German sculpture, including such rare and eminent masters as Veit Stoss and Hans Leinberger, another masterpiece. This is Tilmann Riemenschneider's alabaster group, St. Jerome Extracting the Thorn from the Lion's Foot (Figs. 1–4).1 This distinguished work might well be discussed more at length than has been possible heretofore.2 Several lines of approach will prove to yield additional information of a factual type: the place of the group in the iconographical tradition of the saint, the history of its ownership, the question of Riemenschneider's rare use of alabaster, and the chronology of his works in this material. From the results of these various investigations we may derive a richer understanding of this group which deserves to be regarded as one of Riemenschneider's most important works.

An Early Illustration ofThe Sayings of the Fathers

Of the principal iconographic traditions of Byzantine art it is probable that least is known of that of monasticism. Biblical and imperial art, for example, have been, and continue to be, subjects of extensive research, and our knowledge of them has been greatly widened in recent years. Much less has been accomplished for the monastic tradition, which must nonetheless have been a vital one in Byzantine art. As imperial iconography was designed to enhance the power of the emperor, so must the art of the monks have fostered and preserved the ideals of asceticism, frequently in the face of opposition from the imperial authority itself.

Persians and Persian Costumes in Dutch Painting of the Seventeenth Century

Whereas in England and Germany the Reformation brought a rapid decline of church art, religious painting in Holland reached another heyday in the seventeenth century, in intimate contact with Catholic Flanders and Italy. But the influence of Calvinism had been strong enough to banish the iconographic tradition built up in the course of the Middle Ages, and to replace it by a new secular conception of Biblical life culled from the realistic and historical interpretation of the Scriptures inaugurated by Erasmus of Rotterdam. According to this conception the persons of the Bible were regarded less as the actors of an eternal mystery than as contemporary human beings, and, more in harmony with the historical facts, as people of the Orient—of Eastern appearance, dress, and manners.