Advisory board
Claudia Benthien (Hamburg), Ralph Dekoninck
(Louvain-la-Neuve), James Elkins (Chicago),
Jeffrey Hamburger (Cambridge, MA), Bianca
Kuehnel (Jerusalem), John Lowden (London),
Anneke Smelik (Nijmegen), Victor Stoichita (Fribourg),
Jeroen Stumpel (Utrecht), Paul Vandenbroeck (Leuven),
Jan Van der Stock (Leuven), Gerhard Wolf (Florence)
Partner institutions
Illuminare. Centre for the Study of the Illuminated
Manuscript
www.illuminare.be
The Lieven Gevaert Centre for Photography and Visual
Studies
www.lievengevaertcentre.be
Centre for Women Studies in Theology
theo.kuleuven.be/page/centr_vrouwen
Werkgroep Visuele Cultuur Nederland
www.visuelecultuur.nl
Current projects
Mary Magdalene and the Touching of Jesus. An Intraand Interdisciplinary Investigation of the Interpretation
of John 20,17
Techniques of Visualization and Theories of Vision in
the First Half of the 15th Century
The Impact of Oil. A History of Oil Painting in the low
Countries and its Consequences for the Visual Arts, 13501550
The Brush in the Computer. A History of Computer
Graphics and its Relation to Painting
Iconology Research Group
Contact
Barbara Baert
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Art History
[email protected]
Ann-Sophie Lehmann
Universiteit Utrecht
Media and Culture Studies
[email protected]
Images
René Magritte, L’image parfaite, 1928 (private collection)
Petrus Christus, Portrait of a young man, detail of indulgence with vera icon,
1450-1460 (London, The National Gallery)
Iconology is a two-faced beast. To
students, it is often presented as a
functional subordinate to art history.
In the practice of research, it transgresses the borders of its
discipline and can devour whole universes of images. Indeed, iconology,
as envisioned by Aby Warburg, is
supposed to study images produced
inside and outside the realm of art.
And in order to trace the meanings,
histories and transformations of
images, iconology is in essence interdisciplinary. Warburg therefore explored anthropology, Erwin Panofsky
looked into film, and Ernst Gombrich
put psychology and social sciences to
his service. After these famous ventures from within, the pictorial turn
however was announced by other disciplines, and implied a critique of art
histories’ conservative approach to
images. Visual studies was formed and
opened the realm of images to literary
theory, gender studies, performance
and film studies and many others. Yet,
in the endeavour to study visuality in
all its facets the field remains somewhat indistinct. More recently, Bildwissenschaften has turned to focus on
the image as object again, and in doing so has moved beyond the humanities highlighting image production in
all fields. Facing a possible visual
illiteracy, methods to study images are
also developed outside academia.
In other words, the need to unravel the
meaning of past, present and future images
has become omnipresent. The Iconology
Research Group (IRG) wants to investigate
how iconology as a field and method,
which originated within art history, relates
to these recent developments. It wants to
review and rethink original methodologies
in the light of new approaches. How has
iconology evolved in the past decennia,
could it incorporate visual studies or a
science of images? How have new disciplines profited from iconology and how
can they in turn inspire and/or reinvent
iconology?
Beyond methodological reflection, the IRG
singles out three central research themes:
the production and technologies of
pictures (i), the significance and agency of
images (ii), and the transfer and migration
of motives (iii). These will be addressed
within a wide historical and geographical
scope, as we regard the tracing of pictorial
meaning throughout time and space an
essential characteristic of iconology.
Conferences ‘Iconology@’
Every year an expert meeting presents
iconology in dialogue with and relations to
another discipline and/or field. A keynote
speaker addresses methodological questions
in dialogue with the public. Scholars who
have brought the dialogue into
practice within their research will lecture on
case studies. The Iconology@days will be
published in a new series.
Iconology@Leuven-08
Iconology meets Anthropology
March 7th
Iconology@Louvain-la-Neuve-09
Iconology meets Visual Studies/
Bildwissenschaft
March 6th