Aims

The objective is to offer the keys to the reading of " images ", all artistic disciplines included, in their context of creation and use, from the late Ancient civilization till today. The student will be able to analyse the principal conventions and to manipulate the great repertoires figured in their historical developments. He will have acquired the strategies of deciphering isolated images and complex programmes.

Main themes

The course's objective is to offer the keys and methods to the reading and interpretation of iconic messages in their context and the analysis of the relations between the support, shape and functioning of the artistic images of our era.

Content and teaching methods

Contents : - Nature and characteristics of the iconic language. - The creation of images : sources (text, image, environment) and contexts.. - Life and afterlife of images (examples). - The function of the support (notions of programme and semantic field, ...). - Ornament, figuration and writing : specific features and complementarities. - The meaning of composition and of colour. - Rules and traditions in the decoration of profane and religious space (funrary, baptismal, domestic, etc). Main iconographic traditions : biblical, allegorical, cosmographic, animal, mythical,; sequences and cycles : famous examples. -The support, its shape and how it functions and the physical discovery of the work of artand its images. - Typology and the use of great prefigures. - Special questions : the illustration of the manuscript text; the image as a history document/testimony; the image as a commentary and exegesis; - portraits; - the real, the transreal and the monstrous. - Case studies : the iconography of an artist or of a theme and its mutations through time and space.
Methods : - Talks based on case analyses (illustrated by slides and visits to current exhibitions) chosen in different periods, techniques and areas (mainly the West and Mediterranean area).
Prerequisite : ARKE 1255 "Interprétation de l'image. Introduction aux méthodes iconologiques" (given in the 1st semester).

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

The course of iconology of the masters years extends the course of the Interpretation of the Image and Introduction to Iconological Methods of the second bachelor's year, inviting to personal research and research during the course. Some knowledge of Greek-Roman mythology and Biblical Sacred history is recommended.

Assessment by final oral examination ; the student will benefit from a preparation time. The surveys of analysis should be assimilated. Readings and consulting of works will be required.

Offered tools : reproductions of works and generalities studied during the course, surveys of analysis, repertories, principal systems of iconographical classifying, bibliographies.
Commented visit(s) of collections or exhibitions, in relation to the studied cases during the course and the current events in iconological research.

Other credits in programs