Bildtheorie

Bildtheorie, or image theory, is an interdisciplinary field within art history, philosophy, and media studies that analyzes images as fundamental forms of knowledge, communication, and culture. It asks What counts as an image? How do images convey meaning? How do viewers interpret images in different social and historical contexts? The field also examines how images relate to text, how they function within institutions and markets, and how power, ideology, and ethics shape and are shaped by visual Media.

Historically, Bildtheorie draws on approaches such as iconology and iconography, notably in the work of Erwin Panofsky, who distinguished layers of meaning from visual appearance to symbolic content to a culturally embedded sense of the image. The 20th century contributed psychological and aesthetic perspectives, for example through Rudolf Arnheim’s theories of perception and form. In postwar German-speaking scholarship, Hans Belting helped articulate a broader discipline of Bildwissenschaft (visual studies) that treats images as primary sources of knowledge about culture. In contemporary practice, Bildtheorie engages with painting, sculpture, photography, film, digital images, and new media, often incorporating semiotics, phenomenology, and cultural studies to analyze how images circulate, acquire meaning, and influence everyday life.

Methods commonly used in Bildtheorie include iconological and semiotic analysis, discourse analysis, and studies of visual culture across genres and media. The aim is to understand images as active agents in meaning-making, shaped by historical moments, social power structures, and technological developments, rather than as mere reflections of reality.