Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
How Images Mean: Iconography and Meta-Iconography

How Images Mean: Iconography and Meta-Iconography

Taylor, Paul

Paperback

Art HistoryIndividual Artists

ISBN10: 1913645886
ISBN13: 9781913645885
Publisher: Paul Holberton Publishing
Published: Jul 29 2025
Pages: 264
Weight: 1.70
Height: 0.90 Width: 6.78 Depth: 9.38
Language: English

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, this 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 around. We know the painting depicts people at supper only 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.

Published by Paul Holberton Publishing

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