Page 18 - Darla Farner : Vibrant Abstrac

in one work. Iconology aims at interpretation those symbolic artist and to his particular creative disposition. To achieve this
values sometimes ignored by the artist himself and which may we must try to penetrate the essential sense of a work of art so
differ, even manifestly, from what he consciously wanted to as to be able to grasp the unit that composes it. This is possible
express. when we manage to grasp and to consider the whole of the
The subject of a symbol can reveal a meaning consciously moments of its emanation: subject, icon, and formal element.
bestowed by the artist, if this desired significance is at the same Icnology, as being essentially interdisciplinary and strictly
time also deliberately hidden; here the iconographical analysis related to general symbolism, has become in this way the
is necessarily transformed into a sort of deciphering. best example of the solidarity and complementary of all the
The significances have simply turned from “unconscious” interpretations in their mutual, interpretative and analytic task
into secret ones. The ideas projected by the artist into his work of the various artistic languages, both rational and hype rational,
include the interpretation of the artistic phenomenon itself or, which, in the course of time, have expressed the complicated
at least, they should not be transcended in the research of the relationship of Man with Nature and the number of images of
intrinsic, inner significance. Anyway it is required to reveal the Man himself that Nature reflects. Iconology aims at clearly
philosophical prejudices, which lie behind the visual form. expounding principles, methods, structures and at defining the
In order not to reduce the value of the interpretation of the terminology of certain artistic phenomenology’s contributing
single artistic event it is necessary for the approach to be sensible to develop its study.
and rational, facing the specific culture in which a particular As previously stated, the methodological approach to a symbol
artistic work is inserted. We need to wonder whether or not the is not less important to artistic creations than the analyses of
symbolic meaning of a given motif is usual in a certain figurative its anthropological and technological functions. In fact from
tradition, whether an iconographical interpretation may be the point of view of epistemology the process of symbolizing
justified with certain texts or if it consistent with the ideas that intervenes on many levels of experience, from the complicated
can be alive in that period and can presumably be known by mechanism of our perceptions to the highest degrees of
artists, and to what extent this symbolic interpretation agrees elaboration and arrangement of our way of representing the
with the historical position and the personal tendencies of each world.

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