Iconography literally means "description of images," but it also refers to a research program in art history that exposes the different meanings of images vis-à-vis the beholder. Religious iconography defines a relationship...
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", or painting, and comes from the Greek εικον (image) and...
THE RESTORED GLOBE THEATRE IN LONDON continues to have the best spoken and worst directed Shakespeare company in the world. Artistic Director Mark Rylance's decision to have a speech expert, or "Master of Verse," for each production has given us verse speaking that is...
Portland Press Herald (Maine) 10-12-2003 Iconography Edition: FINAL Section: Audience Many people today have religious statues or photographs in their homes. These everyday objects aren't of a spectacular nature, by and large, but hold special meaning to those who cherish them. This habit...
Archaeologists diving into a lake in the crater of a snowcapped volcano found wooden scepters shaped like lightning bolts that match 500-year-old descriptions by Spanish priests and conquerors writing about offerings to the Aztec rain god.The lightning bolts _ along with cones of copal incense...
AMSTERDAM, Oct 23 (Reuters) - A Dutch scholar has traced an ancient royal seal back to the biblical figure Queen Jezebel, based on a study of its engravings and symbols. After close scrutiny of the images on the seal, which dates from the 9th...
In the following excerpt, Simonds links Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus to the medieval myth and emblem tradition of Wild Men. The innate virtue of these three is in stark contrast to the villainy of Cymbeline's court, she contends, and they are integral to the restoration of a purified Britain.
In the following excerpt, MacKenzie highlights the unconventional use of the mythic figures of Mars and the Hydra in 1 and 2 Henry IV and Henry V. He suggests that although the struggle between Hercules and the Hydra was traditionally represented as a moral contest between good and evil, allusions to the many-headed monster in the Henry IV plays confound the issue of who is virtuous and who is vicious in the competition for the throne. Similarly, MacKenzie views the references to Mars in Henry V as an inte...
In the following excerpt, MacKenzie discusses different icons of life-in-death in Shakespeare's English history plays that support the themes of renewal and heroic succession. He calls particular attention to the phoenix allusions and the idea of England as a new Troy in the Henry VI trilogy and to symbols of the nation as a new Eden in the second tetralogy.
