iconology

Iconology is a field within art history and visual studies that analyzes the meanings of images beyond their literal subject matter. It focuses on symbolic content, allegorical associations, and the role of images in shaping and reflecting cultural and ideological contexts. Iconology asks what images signify within their historical moment and how they help produce values, beliefs, and social identities. It is distinct from iconography, which catalogs subjects and motifs; iconology seeks to uncover underlying ideas and worldviews encoded in visual forms.

The term has roots in Aby Warburg’s work, which treated images as carriers of historical memory and as networks of meaning across cultures. The approach was later formalized by Erwin Panofsky in Studies in Iconology (1939), where he proposed a threefold interpretive framework: the primary or natural subject of an image; the secondary or conventional symbolic meaning of its motifs; and the tertiary or intrinsic meaning that emerges from the image’s cultural and ideological context. Since then, iconology has broadened to include painting, sculpture, manuscript illumination, film, and other visual media, often in dialogue with semiotics, anthropology, and literary theory.

In contemporary practice, iconology analyzes how images participate in religious, political, and popular discourses by tracing symbols, memory, and reference across time and space. It remains a foundational approach for understanding how visual culture conveys meaning beyond straightforward depiction, and it intersects with studies of symbolism, representation, and visual rhetoric.