Iconology

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /aɪkəˈnɒlədʒi/

Definitions

1. The examination of visual symbols and their cultural implications involves understanding their meanings in art and society
2. This discipline investigates the use of symbols in art to uncover the underlying cultural narratives they convey
3. The analysis of symbols and motifs in artworks to interpret cultural and historical contexts

Etymology: The most useful thing to know about this word is that its central piece, "icon," once meant nothing more than a likeness. The Ancient Greek "eikōn" referred to an image or portrait, and it passed into English as "icon" with that plain sense of a picture or representation. The "-logy" ending comes from the Greek "logos," meaning word, reason or study, and it is the same suffix found in "biology" and "geology." Combined, the two parts give a study of images. Over time the word's meaning narrowed. In English, "icon" came to describe religious images, especially the painted panels venerated in Eastern Orthodox churches, and later a symbol or person who stands for a larger idea. The modern discipline of iconology, which reads the symbolic content of artworks, grew out of this sense of an image as a carrier of meaning. The term is a learned formation built from these classical parts rather than an ancient word used in its present sense.