Wasn't sure where to bring an art question, but assumed I'd receive quicker response here as it's quite urgent at this point.
Is it possible to make an iconographic analysis of abstract works of art? Or is this only plausible in representational art?
>>2615510
I'm sure people have analysed some abstract painters such as Miro, Kandinsky, or Klee from the perspective of iconography
>>2615525
After creating this thread I was searching around for some examples and came across this of Pollock's work
http://danploy.com/art_history_chapter_2.htm
I began writing a paper analyzing an abstract piece & the paper is due tomorrow. Nearly halfway through and I thought: what if I was supposed to be writing about representational art...? as I hadn't found much discussion on iconography in abstract work while looking to my sources.
If anyone is interested in art/studied in any art field and is willing to proofread or provide feedback I would appreciate it. So far I'm really proud of what I've come up with & interested myself in it far more than I would've imagined.
>>2615565
It depends on the degree of abstraction. Most abstract art lends best to formalist analysis, but as that site suggests you can apply iconographical analysis to anything that has figures or symbols. You'd need evidence though, like what the artist had been exposed to in his learning, the artist's writing, past examples in other works, similar examples in similar works (or to similar ends). "This line represents sadness" is not very effective, but there are abstract works where colour is used specifically to evoke certain responses. But as I said, evidence is the most important thing, except if you're talking about your own subjective engagement with the work (based on what you'd been exposed to in your learning, etc.)
>>2615609
This paper is for an Art History II class, which is rather entry level for me, but in transferring to this school I was expected to complete a requirements list of basic art classes before moving on.
The rubric is rather simple, and sources to be used only consist of Iconography Dictionaries or books that look into the meaning behind symbols... so given that, I'm pretty sure our research isn't meant to dig deeply into the artists life/timeline as it should which is why I was worried this was meant mostly for representational works, as its easy to say this means this and heres why in that case where abstract is often a much bigger picture.
However, I'm still continuing to work on it as I was & I am using iconography of color to play a large role in it. I expect to give the professor more of a wow factor for an easy A by looking so deeply into something that might be otherwise viewed as indifferent.
we'll see though, I really appreciate that information. I know I said I'm in a pretty entry level class, but I guess if I had to ask this original question and had no prior knowledge of iconographic analysis in abstract art, I'm in the right class.
Well, I think it should be. I know that, for example, Kandinsky often used the motif of a boat (symbolizing Noah's ark). You can see it in the bottom left corner of Composition VII.