How Images Mean: Iconography and Meta-Iconography
This groundbreaking study interrogates a rich and diverse repertoire of images from all over the world to answer the fundamental question: how are the meanings of images conveyed, recognized and accepted?
Combining art history, anthropology, philosophy and linguistics, the book expands the field of traditional iconography, which explains what images mean, by introducing new, useful categories that enable us to understand how images mean (meta-iconography). In his study of iconography from a century ago Erwin Panofsky famously discussed what an “Australian bushman” might make of Leonardo’s Last Supper: though unaware of the religious story, the Aboriginal viewer would have known it was a picture of humans eating a meal together. Paul Taylor’s book argues that this gets the question the wrong way round. We only know the painting depicts people at supper if we know it represents a supper. It is through knowing the cultural context that we can interpret the contents of an image. Universal in scope and profoundly topical at a time when artificial intelligence is redefining our visual horizon, this book represents a resource for scholars in a variety of fields and a thought-provoking read for all those interested in art.
By Paul Taylor
ISBN: 978-1-913645-88-5
Paperback, 242 x 168 mm
256 pages, approx 170 illustrations
£30/€35/$40
About the author
Paul Taylor has been a member of the Warburg Institute since 1991 and is the Curator of its Photographic Collection. An expert on iconography and Dutch art, his publications include Condition: The Ageing of Art (2015), Iconography without Texts (as editor, 2008) and Dutch Flower Painting, 1600–1720 (1995).
Praise for How Images Mean
How Images Mean leverages Taylor’s encyclopedic knowledge of art history to offer a new theory of how images of many sorts have the range of meanings that they do. This is the first theory crafted in the full light of the history of art. No philosopher has ever had Taylor’s grasp of art history, and few art historians have ever had Taylor’s grasp of philosophy. The book is indispensable for philosophers interested in working on pictorial representation, and it deserves a place beside the other great works of philosophical art history from Baxandall, Freedberg, Gombrich and Podro—John V. Kulvicki, Professor of Philosophy, Dartmouth College
This brilliantly insightful and ambitious book returns iconography to a central place in the understanding of the visual arts. In a departure from traditional approaches focused on merely deciphering subjects and symbols, Taylor shows that the creation and interpretation of meaning in images forms part of a complex process inseparable from the cultures of both maker and viewer. Transcending the usual boundaries of scholarly specialization, he offers a truly global perspective on iconography—Tanya J. Tiffany, Professor, Renaissance and Baroque Art, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Paul Taylor brilliantly integrates insights from philosophy, semiology, psychology, cognitive science, ethnography and art history to explain how meanings arise through the interplay of authors, artworks and viewers, and provides clear examples from a broad range of cultures, contexts and historical periods. This important book will inspire a great deal of interest and interdisciplinary research into the complex ways meanings arise in the world of art—David G. Stork, Adjunct Professor, Stanford University. Author of Pixels & Paintings (2023)
In this profound and important book, Paul Taylor provides a fascinating account of iconographic theories. Deftly navigating a maze of traditions in aesthetics and art history, the author vividly charts the diverging ways images function in varied places and societies. Thoughtful and provocative, it should be required reading for anyone interested in the interpretation of images —Alexander Marr, Professor of Renaissance and Early Modern Art, University of Cambridge
How Images Mean provides a lucid, wide-ranging guide to the many ways in which context is crucial for the understanding of images. Examples from all continents aptly and often surprisingly illustrate how much we need to know if we are to see what an image means. Simply looking is not enough —Richard Davies, Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Bergamo