Eikón / Imago

In(ter)disciplinarity and object of study: two axes for thinking about the frontiers of art history and visual studies

Gorka López de Munain — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Editorial of the monograph Las fronteras de la historia del arte y los estudios visuales. Reflections on their object of study. The following contributions analyse the fluid nature of the object of study of art history, assessing the impact of the different interdisciplinary dynamics that have displaced and questioned its limits. The aim is to measure the capacity of this branch of knowledge to confront a visual culture in constant transformation, which must adapt to the emergence of new objects (such as images created with artificial intelligence) and which must permanently revise its research methodologies for the study of both contemporary works and those created in the past.

Turning to the visual turn

Sergio Martínez Luna — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article proposes a review of the theories of the image since the visual turn, both in the Anglo-Saxon context (W.J.T. Mitchell´s pictorial turn) and in the German context (Gottfried Boehm´s iconic turn). However, other perspectives are also considered, such as those coming from phenomenology (Emmanuel Alloa). The coincidences and differences between the two approaches are discussed, especially regarding how images produce meaning and their forms of action and agency. It also reviews the objections made to Visual Studies from disciplines such as History of Art. One of the key questions is that of the object of these studies, related to that of interdisciplinarity, as well as to the definition of the concept of visuality, which includes images and ways of seeing in their social and historical specificity. The debates between perceptualist and semiotic positions are linked to the conception of the image as appearance and mediation, presence, and representation. The article argues for maintaining the aporias and ambiguities of the image, for it is these that retain its critical potential, especially pressing in the age of machinic networked images and artificial vision.

At the Frontiers of Modern Narrative: Versions of the Post-medium

Gabriel Cabello Padial — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article starts from the assumption that the proposal to replace art history with a history/anthropology of images has coincided with, and has been supported by, the dissolution of the modern narrative on art and its appeal to the specific medium. We intend in this text to give an account of three approaches, those of Michael Fried, Rosalind E. Krauss and Peter Osborne. In those approaches, a dialogue is established with Clement Greenberg's legacy, and a way out of the end of the modern narrative that differs from the one embraced by the iconic turn is proposed. Finally, we point out some of the limitations with which such Greenbergian heritage permeates these approaches, particularly the difficulty in confronting the implexité in which images and emotions are intertwined.

Los intersticios de la imagen: economías de lo (in)visible e imaginación iconoclasta

Renato Bermúdez Dini — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article proposes the notion of iconoclastic imagination based on images as interstices. In order to do so, firstly, a historical revision of iconoclasm is proposed, not as mere destruction but as a dispute over visuality and power, based on the economy of the (in)visible, according to Marie-José Mondzain. Secondly, from this perspective of political administration based on images, the conceptual category of the interstice in Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy is used to explain iconoclasm as a practice of interweaving and juxtapositions from which new images proliferate. Finally, the notion of iconoclastic imagination is proposed, drawing on the performativity of images articulated by Andrea Soto Calderón, to argue that through it we can articulate other forms of relationship with images and the political powers that inhabit them. This article contributes to the debates on the impact of images from the interdisciplinary crossroads between visual culture studies and the political philosophy of image, and goes beyond the patrimonialist perspective from which art history has studied iconoclasm, to claim it as a practice of critical intervention in our imaginaries.

Visual Artistic Creation in the Face of the Challenges of Artificial Intelligence. Creative Automation and Ethical Questions

Juan Martín Prada — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article discusses the emergence of generative models of image creation based on artificial intelligence (AI) and how they work by converting natural language descriptions (prompts) into images. Particular emphasis is placed on the ethical issues involved in the training processes of these systems. The risks that these generative models catalyse a devaluation of human creativity in various dimensions and that the generalisation of their use promotes an increasingly derivative and inauthentic visual culture are central to this article. Likewise, in the final part, we describe some avenues of current visual creation centred on the critical thematisation of artificial intelligence, which situate the relationship between art and AI not so much in the exploitation of the latter's creative (combinatory, derivative) capacity as in the poetic and critical enquiry into its effects on the production of our subjectivity.

Artificial Imagination and the History of Images

Josep M. Català Domènech — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Artificial intelligence, the last frontier of our deranged humanism, is the framework within which artificial image production systems appear. This is forcing us to reconsider the concepts of imagination and creativity while establishing a deep cut regarding the history of art in general and that of images in particular, a caesura or disruption that has much to do with the unbalanced state of the contemporary subject. The article intends to analyze the new type of artificial images and the panorama of visual culture in which they are generated, emphasizing the general phenomenology of the contemporary image and its relationship with thinking.

Deviations of Artificial Intelligence in the Technological Arts: Algorithms, Bodies, Affections, and Other Materialities Towards the Dismantling of the Myth of Novelty

Jazmín Adler — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The article analyzes a set of contemporary works that from the convergences of art and technologies explores the field of artificial intelligence, through the confluence of different kinds of materialities, both physical and virtual. Nevertheless, the cognitive capacities of the computational systems involved in these projects are not circumscribed to the role of complicity with respect to the phenomenon of algorithmic governmentality, but implement different tactics of deviation from the instrumental uses of technologies. Those strategies are aimed at disarticulating their hegemonic functions of control over bodies and affects, or at transgressing the expected efficiency of artificial intelligences. Through the perspective of neomaterialism, we argue that the selected works crystallize certain tensions identified here as authorial dispute, generative condition and transgressions towards physical materiality, which are also present in other projects developed since the middle of the last century unrelated to artificial intelligence. The article concludes that these categories allow us to demystify the radical novelty that artificial intelligence implies for the history of art, while they incite critical re-readings of its narratives in order to link the history of mainstream contemporary art with the technological art scene.

Global turn in art history and methodological constellations on artistic circulation. Perspectives, ideas, and operational concepts.

Francesca Iorio — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article is situated within the context of exploring transnationality, circulation, and mobility as methodological devices/operational concepts in analyzing artistic artifacts, artists, and knowledge in motion. It delves into the interaction between art history and the global configuration of the contemporary age, reflecting on the application of methodological proposals from the global turn in the social sciences to the analysis of artistic mobility during the early modern period. Within this broader exploration, the article delves into the multifaceted nature of the genesis of reflections that have led to the emergence of global art history as a constellated phenomenon. It argues that the questioning of paradigms and the introduction of new terminology into the discipline cannot be solely attributed to art history itself. Instead, it emphasizes the need to examine the close association between this approach and broader movements of thought and historiography. At its core, the article highlights the crucial need for reevaluating language, lexicon, and research practices within historiographical movements. It advocates for the deconstruction of existing narratives and the creation of counter-narratives through a reconsideration of the terminology employed. This process fosters imaginative exploration bringing artistic analysis closer to current debates and ongoing reformulations of research practices.

Historical and Aesthetic Awareness: (De)colonial Art and Image

Christiane Wagner — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

To analyze, describe, and classify the human achievements considered culturally and socially as art is to reflect on the experiences and aesthetic effects of various historical contexts, especially on the judgments of cultural values and images. In this sense, this article addresses historical consciousness as a collective phenomenon developed by modern Western culture to meet a new context that is current and decolonial. Through a literature review on the formation of aesthetics and art history disciplines, this study addresses the meaning of art as an image that forms contemporary ideals for a sustainable world, valuing differences as a proposal for the revision of the knowledge established by the Western world and considering new narratives focused on visual culture studies for the formation of an inclusive history of art. To this end, the effects of this new context are discussed through the aesthetic experience regarding the challenges of knowledge construction by reviewing the central values of Western culture. Therefore, it is assumed necessary to interpret the cultural transformations through the arts concerning material, ethical, and aesthetic changes involving historical consciousness and new humanities knowledge developments in Western and non-Western environments.

Beyond measure: using digital humanities to unravel the system of perspective within Japanese images in nara-ehon manuscripts of otogi-zōshi tales

Héléna D.M. Lagréou — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The present article illustrates the advantages of digital humanities to unearth new understandings, in this case of the Pre-Modern Japanese visual culture. Precisely, this article serves three purposes. Firstly, it is a guide to digital methods for size analysis in visual studies. Secondly, this study proposes a survey of the collection of nara-ehon manuscripts of yoko-hon format from the “Digital Collections of the Keio University Libraries”. Thirdly, I present my study of perspective in Pre-Modern Japanese images, which have been puzzling scholars. Indeed, the size of characters painted on the images varies greatly. Yet, these fluctuations in measurements are not used to illusorily transform a two-dimensional space into a three-dimensional one. The image composition and the varying sizes of characters do not create any spatial depth. Unfortunately, creating a systematic study of this visual conundrum was difficult prior to the rise of digital humanities, leaving researchers only with hypothesises. With these new creative methods, and the measurements of 1040 characters extracted from 244 images, the system of perspective within Japanese images is now clearer. Pre-Modern Japanese images use a psychological perspective intricately informed by a play on social norms restricted by the materiality of the manuscripts.

Intencionalidad, casualidad e intermedialidad. Crítica a una historiografía de la recepción de Babel en Pieter Bruegel el Viejo y la escuela de Amberes.

María Bendito — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article aims to challenge much of the literature that art history has produced on the value and meaning of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s two towers of Babel. This critique derives from the realisation that the outcomes are critical and inadequate when, firstly, the concepts of semanticity, authorship, tradition and intentionality are subjected to crisis. Concepts that are quite common in the discipline of art history and especially weak when it intersects with the methodologies of Visual or Cultural Studies. Secondly, when these towers are studied in parallel to other images traditionally considered minor. That is to say, when we realise that historiography has considered Bruegel to be the author of novelties at the expense of other artists and media of an apparently lower status. And, finally, when the perspective from which these images should be studied and its questions are reformulated.

El otro Kronstadt: la imagen significante y el concepto de realismo durante la defensa de Madrid en noviembre de 1936.

Manuel Arsenio Antón Salas — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

La película soviética Los Marinos de Kronstadt (1936) fue proyectada en Madrid por primera vez el 18 de octubre de 1936, a pocos meses de comenzar la guerra civil española (1936-1939). Los medios de masas pronto instrumentalizaron sus valores ideológicos textuales y subtextuales para explicar la realidad española de la guerra. Analizando su impacto a la luz de la teoría de la producción visual ideologizada y de las posibilidades del realismo que construye Josep Renau (1907-1982) durante los mismos años comprobaremos la capacidad significante de la película en una realidad social en conflicto. Un contexto en el que la producción visual se explotó hasta el punto de conformar un verdadero imaginario (ideológico, bélico, revolucionario) cuyas representaciones se sometieron a un proceso constante de redefinición y revisión. En los años que duró la contienda se reflexionó continuamente sobre las posibilidades morfológicas y las capacidades ideológicas de la imagen, desdibujando las fronteras entre las categorías convencionales que separan la imagen artística de otros tipos de representaciones visuales. Como integrante de dicho fenómeno, en cuya construcción se fueron superponiendo las consideraciones sobre los usos y alcances de toda clase de imágenes, la película presenta un caso de estudio ejemplar.

Estudios Visuales e Intermedialidad: el caso del videojuego Assassin’s Creed Unity (Ubisoft, 2014)

Marta Piñol-Lloret — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Nowadays, images are everywhere: we are surrounded by them, we live by them, we inhabit them and we even become images. That is why it is imperative to approach Art History with an inclusive approach that allows us to rethink its roles and add new media, among which videogames stand out. Therefore, we have drawn its analysis from Visual Studies and we have questioned ourselves about the intermediality and transmediality of one of the games of the Assassin's Creed saga, Unity (Ubisoft, 2014), especially relevant to approach technoculture, the materialization of space in a place and how it is deployed in videogames, the strategies developed by this title to appeal to authenticity by relying on verisimilitude and recognition instead of accuracy, the relevance of anachronism, how it explores the connections between history and memory, and how it is situated in relation to genres. As evidenced in the article, videogames address all these issues and acknowledge the weight of our visual memory and the role it plays in how we perceive images and the importance we give to them.

The methodological debate on the interartistic study of painting-literature: Francisco Bores (1898-1972) and his avant-garde artistic circle

Judit Faura González — Tue, 14 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article aims to examine how the methodological debate related to the study of the interaction between painting and literature during the early avant-garde has developed, using the case of Francisco Bores, a painter associated with the School of Paris, and his close artistic circle as a paradigmatic example. From the perspective of Comparative Literature, Visual Studies and Semiotics, scholars have sought to examine both similarities and divergences between the two manifestations. Through this interdisciplinary perspective, the aim is to explore this period using the works of these artists as a starting point to incorporate various theoretical contributions present in contemporary historiography, which have focused on the relationship between art and literature.

Transmedia and environmental graphic strategy in museum systems: A study of three representative museums in Lima

Grisel Andrea Rodríguez Yncio — Tue, 14 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The research seeks to explain the integration of digital resources and environmental graphics in a transmedia strategy as part of the museographic narrative of museums in Lima. The hypothesis suggests that, if such integration exists, then a participatory culture will be fostered that transcends the physical space of the exhibitions. A qualitative ethnographic study method with a descriptive scope was used, in which a visual analysis of graphic and interactive resources was carried out, as well as the way in which visitors relate to them. The museums studied were the National Museum of Archeology, Anthropology and History of Peru; the Place of Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion; and the Lima Art Museum. In the main results, it was found that the digitization of content does not necessarily promote participation in the virtual environment. Furthermore, in physical space, users look for different stimuli with which they interact and these do not necessarily come from a screen. It is concluded that there is an incipient participatory culture that transcends the physical space of museum exhibitions, and that depends exclusively on these being formulated, according to a coherent transmedia narrative, integrating digital resources and environmental graphics.

Teresa Diez me fecit and the Wall Paintings of the Convent of Santa Clara, Toro. Some Epigraphic Considerations

Lara Arribas Ramos — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The controversy surrounding the figure of Teresa Díez, based on the inscription with her name that was found on the wall paintings in the convent of the Poor Clares in Toro, proves the interest that medieval signatures have been generating in Art History. The relevance of Teresa’s epigraphic decision, however, goes beyond the study of this document as a source for the mere attestation of the lady’s role as author or commissioner of the pictorial cycles. Aspects such as the symbolic charge that the word has had since ancient times in its condition as a visual sign, or the location of the writing within a space of female enclosure permits an in‑depth study of some of the uses given to this inscription as an image. From this point of view, a review of it leads to the assertion, for this me fecit, of a function linked to the exercise of personal and institutional memory, through the enunciation of the lady’s name, the memory of her lineage and the intention of a timeless bond with the paintings.

Games and the Sacred in the Kingdom of Castille during the Late Middle Ages

Juan Coira Pociña — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Playing is one of the most meaningful activities of our culture and, according to the philosopher Eugen Fink, one of the “fundamental phenomena of human existence”. The close connection between playing and the divine is one of its most important facets. At the start of the Middle Ages games were connected to pagan worship. For this reason, the Church condemned games, which led to the loss of their connection to sacredness. Despite this, people maintained their customs and love for games, which regained their popularity and social presence during the late Middle Ages. This circumstance forced authorities to regulate them like, for instance, king Alfonso X and the Libro del axedrez, dados e tablas. The Church’s condemnation, especially of gambling, was motivated by the alleged sinful consequences of games primarily, rather than their sinful nature, which explains the Church’s permissiveness when games were played both in the right context and company. For this reason, games maintained some of their essence and connection with the divine. This relationship is analyzed through legislative, literary and iconographic resources of the period.

Jewellery as a Mirror of Virtues: Women and Prudence

Isabel Escalera Fernández — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Nowadays, jewellery studies are becoming increasingly important. Jewellery not only served to show the power of its owner, but also contained information about the interests and personality of the wearer. Jewellery possessed numerous meanings and was used as an instrument of prestige by the elite. From an early date women began to wear jewellery to emphasise their qualities, and these small precious objects alluded the character of their owner. One of the motifs that began to gain significance on jewellery was the representation of a virtue: Prudence. Although the iconographic types of Prudence have varied over time, its presence on jewellery, pendants, or hat badges refer to the virtue of the wearer. Thus, thanks to the pieces that have survived until the present day, we can analyse the role they once played.

The demiurge in the convex mirror. The Hermetic keys of Parmigianino’s Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

Roger Ferrer-Ventosa — Tue, 14 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The article analyses the conceptual foundations of Parmigianino in relation to his Hermetic and Neoplatonic ideas and alchemical practice, which were important in Renaissance Italian culture. Parmigianino's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror is viewed as an embodiment of the artist as a demiurge, a creator of a brand new universe. The article highlights the symbolic and metaphysical significance of the convex mirror, reflecting the artist's creative power and the hidden values of reality. Melancholy, associated with Saturn, was a characteristic of artists and intellectuals in that cultural context. The article discusses Parmigianino’s frescos of Diana and Actaeon, a myth that symbolizes the pursuit of wisdom and the transformative process of the alchemist. Finally, it is also examined Parmigianino's potential interest in alchemy based on historical accounts. The controversy surrounding Parmigianino's involvement in alchemy is discussed, along with the opinions of various scholars

Iconography of the Literary Look: An Ovidian Interpretation of the So-Called Nilotic Mosaic of Merida (No. 9 of the Corpus of MRH-MRM)

Angélica García-Manso, Francisco Javier Tovar Paz — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The so-called Nilotic Mosaic of Mérida (no. 9 in the MRH-MRM corpus) was found in the mid-19th century. The extraordinary nature of its design was evident from the moment it was found, although, unfortunately, popular superstition largely destroyed the pavement, but not before a draft of its contents was drawn, and numerous remains were preserved, so that it has been reconstructed and is on display in the National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida (Extremadura - Spain). The mosaic combines exotic, cultural and annual cycle elements, but no overall interpretation of the mosaic has yet been postulated. However, it seems possible to make an integrative reading based on the myth of the contest between the Muses and the Pyerides from the Ovidian Metamorphoses. Such a reading gives unity to the amalgam of iconographic motifs and may even explain the choice of a predominantly dichromatic technique in keeping with the colours of the magpies into which the Pyerides were transformed and also in keeping with a precept of literary creation that warns against hybris.

Mourning in Ptolemaic and Roman Egyptian Art: The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys

Alejandra Izquierdo Perales — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This work aims to study the iconography of crying of Isis and Nephthys in combination with the funerary literature of the Ptolemaic and Roman period in which evidence related to the grief of the Two Sisters is attested. Although the grief of both goddesses over the death of Osiris was not restricted to the funerary literature of the Ptolemaic period, it seems that it was then that this theme was developed in greater detail. In order to carry out this study, the texts of The Glorifications, among which are those known as The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys, have been taken into account alongside the representations of Isis and Nephthys in different objects found in funerary contexts. The iconography of the two goddesses shows allusions to funerary texts, the use of weeping as a ritual component to guarantee the survival of the deceased person in the Hereafter. It also emphasizes the identification of the dead with Osiris through the plastic art representations and funeral rituals.

Religio, pietas y sacrilegio en la iconografía monetaria de la Roma tardorrepublicana y altoimperial

Patricia Labrador Ballestero, Ana Vico Belmonte — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Roman coinage presents a great variety of iconographic messages that show the close relationship between traditional religion, the transmission of messages by the state and coinage. This article analyses some of these messages and the link between coinage and sacrilege. To this end, we have selected key pieces of Late Republican and High Imperial Roman coinage, covering a chronological framework between approximately 133 BC and 192 AD, and we have studied the relationship between the types shown and their socio-political context.

Aesthetic-Political Disputes around Urban Space and Memory: Locate, Displace, Replace, Overflow and Intervene Monuments

Hernán Lopez Piñeyro, Juan Pablo Pérez, María Eugenia Redruello — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Starting from the study of some particular cases of emblematic monuments, such as those of Julio Argentino Roca, Cristóbal Colón and Juana Azurduy, erected in different Argentine cities during the 20th century and the discussions they provoked, this article proposes a theoretical and situated study on monumentalization, remonumentalization and demonumentalization. At the same time, other political aesthetic practices developed by collectives of Argentine artists of the 21st century that oppose the logic of monuments and propose ways of exercising memory that assume their unstable and ephemeral character are analyzed. Finally, it is concluded that the anthropomorphic monuments of bronze or marble, beyond the figures they represent, crystallize memory but also give rise to various practices that destabilize their logics and open other vital experiences.

Santa María 1907. La marcha ha comenzado (Pedro Prado, 2014). The Contribution of the Visual: The Emergence of a Collective Subject

Mary Mac-Millan Kuthe — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this work we approach the graphic novel by Pedro Prado entitled: Santa María 1907. The march has begun (2014). Prado tackles one of the most infamous historical events in Chilean memory: the massacre of the workers at the Domingo Santa María school in Iquique in 1907. We are guided by the question of the contribution of the visual understood as a representation with characteristics typical of the comic book medium. The analysis focuses on the specific techniques through which a clear emergence of a collective subject is achieved (double page spread, full page cartoon, use of planes, focalization). Secondly, the resource of animalization and its possible function within the logic of the novel are considered. The analysis is closed by verifying the temporality of duration as resistance through the use of an elongated vignette. Prado's options enhance the collective aspect of the march, humanize the victims, and announce a new legibility.

Shared Heraldry and the Sacred Space: The Building Blocks of João I of Portugal’s Imagery

Miguel Metelo de Seixas — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This study considers the practice of shared heraldry as an instrument of affirmation of late-medieval monarchies, examining the case study of King João I of Portugal. The study of how this sovereign’s heraldry was shared with those close to him illustrates how heraldry was understood as an instrument of propaganda for the cause of independence, in the context of the 1383-1385 dynastic crisis, and subsequently in building the imagery of the King and the dynasty he founded. The transposition of this heraldry to the Monastery of Batalha, erected to commemorate the victory at Aljubarrota and later a dynastic necropolis, established a privileged relationship with this monument’s architecture and iconography, expanding the same theme of shared heraldry (now in a dynastic context) as an expression of the royal power’s legitimacy.

Animal Symbology in Art, from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, Contrasted with the Christian Literature of the 2nd Century and the First Half of the 3rd Century

Santiago Navascués Alcay — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Since Late Antiquity times, there has been an intense Christianization of pagan myths and beliefs about fauna, both in textual production and in art. This article intends to clarify how that process came to be. After the analysis of pagan sources, both literary and archaeological, and of Christian literature of the second century and the first half of the third century, the study concludes that early Christians have their own animal symbology, different from their pagan neighbors, and are not interested in carrying out any Christian assimilation of pagan representations and stories of animals. This Christianization will take place in subsequent years and will occur in parallel in art and literature.

The Doors of the Prayer Hall of the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar in Zaragoza

Esther Ortiz Gutiérrez — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar has caught the attention of the academic world on numerous occasions throughout history. Despite a proliferation of studies on the building, many questions are yet to be resolved. Such is the case of the doors leading to the prayer hall of the basilica, barely studied by researchers. The objective of this article is to reclaim the artistic value of this sculptural ensemble, through the review of documentary, bibliographic, and, especially, iconographic sources, to understand its execution and context around the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

Snippets of Courtly Love: Three Illuminated Manuscripts of the Metamorphoses from the 14th Century

Brianda Otero Moreira — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The main purpose of this contribution is to present three illuminated manuscripts of Ovid's Metamorphoses, two preserved in the National Library of Spain (BNE) and one in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden (SLUB). The illuminations of the three codices present an apparent lack of correspondence with the mythological content of the text and have so far not been considered in studies of the illuminated Metamorphoses. Their analysis makes it possible to establish a clear relationship between the three manuscripts, as well as to delve more deeply into the outlook of the miniature of the Ovidian poem during the last centuries of the Middle Ages.

Análisis iconológico de la representación de la muerte en la fábula fantástica mexicana Macario (1960) de Roberto Gavaldón

Saray Reyes Avilés — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This research work is focused on the iconological analysis of the allegory of death, identifying the Mexican elements of popular tradition, which appear in said representation, with the aim of specifying the ideological contents that are conveyed in the film Macario (1960) by Roberto Gavaldon. This study is carried out based on Erwin Panofsky's iconographic methodology, which emphasizes the link between visual elements a specific time and context. From the beginning of the film narration we can notice that, in Macario, death is subverted giving a different meaning to the one that this character originally had in The Godson of Death (1815) by the Grimm brothers and from the text by B. Traven; Emilio Carballido and Roberto Gavaldón manipulate an ideology, where death is humanized, losing its character as an inescapable fact. Another dissonance between the versions of the original story is that death is represented as a woman, while in Macario it is personified as a man and he does not sponsor him, he makes him a compadre, treats him with friendship and closeness, as suggested by the godfather; giving it a friendly, democratic character and without distinction treatment of equals.

Recovery and Resignification of Religious Iconography in Francisco de Goya’s Desastres de la guerra (Disasters of War) Series

Derli Romero Cerna, Carmen V. Vidaurre Arenas — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In the present article, we compare some of Goya’s etchings with images from religious art that were available during the artist’s lifetime to delineate the similarities existing between them, concerning the positions and postures of its main subjects. We describe the iconography of a selection of prints in order to find details that in some cases suggest the close relationships and, in others, the common styles existing in Goya’s artwork. The methodology is centered on the statements of studies in three stages of Erwin Panofsky, with this we refer to pre-iconographic, iconographic, and iconological. This analysis considers elements that guard possible association on interpretative grounds according to the historic-social context of the artwork production. The recovery of particular elements of religious iconography it’s not always carried from one perspective but from various viewpoints.

Engraving in the House of Austria during the First Half of the 16th Century: A Visual Tool at the Service of the Propaganda System

Carlos Jesús Sosa Rubio — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The rise of the printing press during the first half of the 1500s ran parallel to the development of reprographic techniques that not only facilitated the multiplicity and dissemination of images, but also their use as the backbone of any propaganda system, in favor or against the civil or ecclesiastical power. All this, moreover, sharpened by a heterogeneous system of political-territorial organization, the empire, in which the transversality of the image would enjoy a power and agglutinating capacity from which the sphere of reading and writing was still kept away. These pages reflect on the use that the Habsburg dynasty made, throughout this period, of engraving techniques such as xylography or etching, analyzing as well how the diffusion of a series of engravings, that of Nikolas Hogenberg on the procession after the coronation of Charles V in Bologna (1530), allowed this historical event to be reflected in different materials and spaces, both in Spain and in Italy. Imagocentrism, for the reasons stated, acquired a strong impulse in this incipient modernity.

El mirador de Deleuze como detonante para repensar los estudios sobre el arte de la animación

Daniel Valle Gómez — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The present text parts from the actual state of the reflection about animation art and borderings to propose a previous thinking to the visual, a view to take a look and think the artistic animated object before we will be able to go deep into its stratigraphic complexity. This overlook are the images offered by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who breaks through the historic and aesthetics images of the cinema and the constituent components such as the animated art as the thinking able to think it in all its whole magnitude.The crux of the matter resides in the lenticularity of these images which traze the lines of the intellibility needed to articulate the relations that go from the perception and the sensorial system to the subjective renewal. This makes that the expression of the work comes back again and again in a different way. And in the middle of everything, the almost innocent notion of the movement remains so that in the cinematographic arts and from the animated image what we found is a pure change, progression, experience, movement, that is, images in motion.

The Convergence of Slobozhanska Iconography in the Discourse of Western European Baroque

Tetyanа Volodymyrivna Panyok — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Based on the analysis, generalization and systematization of documents, some well-known to researchers and others not so much investigated, this article studies the influence of Western European Baroque art on the iconography of the region of Slobozhanska (Ukraine) during the 17^thand 18^thcenturies. It is argued that the use of Western European religious themes by Slobozhanshchyna icon painters, in combination with previous iconographic traditions and their transformation to the spiritual and religious features of the region, contributed to the development of a regional iconographic art, a process that could be regarded as a unique phenomenon in the history of Ukrainian culture. As the text will highlight, the stylistic program of Slobozhanshchyna iconography of the Baroque period was influenced by symbolic and emblematic Western European collections that inspired icon painters to create new iconographic subjects. To that aim, the article analyses the artistic and figurative system of iconography, considers its characteristic stylistic features, and draws attention to the borrowing of elements of Western European painting and graphics in Orthodox iconography.

Martí Bonafé, M.ª Ángeles, coord. Marías. Entre la adoración y el estigma. Valencia: Tirant Humanidades, 2022 [ISBN: 978-84-19071-69-9]

José Julio García Arranz — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Book review of Marías. Entre la adoración y el estigma (Valencia: Tirant Humanidades, 2022 [ISBN: 978-84-19071-69-9]), coordinated by Mª Ángeles Martí Bonafé.

Salvador González, José María. Ianua Coeli. María Mediadora de la Humanidad. Explicación doctrinal e iconografía. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, Humanidades, 2023, 232 p. [ISBN: 978-84-19588-88-3]

Herbert González Zymla — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Book review of Salvador González, José María. Ianua Coeli. María Mediadora de la Humanidad. Explicación doctrinal e iconografía. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, Humanidades, 2023, 232 p. [ISBN: 978-84-19588-88-3]

Beresford, Andrew M. Sacred Skin: The Legend of St. Bartholomew in Spanish Art and Literature. Brill, 2020. [ISBN: 978-90-04-40780-0]

Patricia Grau-Dieckmann — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Book review: Beresford, Andrew M. Sacred Skin: The Legend of St. Bartholomew in Spanish Art and Literature. Brill, 2020. [ISBN: 978-90-04-40780-0]

Cascelli, Antonio and Denis Condon, eds. Experiencing Music and Visual Cultures: Threshold, Intermediality, Synchresis. London and New York: Routledge, 2021 [ISBN: 978-0-367-18804-7]

Aitor Merino Martínez — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Book review of Experiencing Music and Visual Cultures: Threshold, Intermediality, Synchresis, edited by Cascelli, Antonio and Denis Condon. London and New York: Routledge, 2021 [ISBN: 978-0-367-18804-7].

Rossi, Maria Alessia and Alice Isabella Sullivan, eds. Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions (Sense, Matter, and Medium 6). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2022 [ISBN: 9783110693164]

Giedrė Mickūnaitė — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Book review of Rossi, Maria Alessia and Alice Isabella Sullivan, eds. Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions (Sense, Matter, and Medium 6). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2022 [ISBN: 9783110693164]

Preisinger, Raphaèle, ed. Medieval Art at the Intersection of Visual and Material Culture. Studies in the ‘Semantics of Vision’. Turnhout: Brepols, 2021 [ISBN: 978-2-503-58153-8]

Fuensanta Murcia Nicolás — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Pazos-López, Ángel. Imágenes de la liturgia medieval. Planteamientos teóricos, temas visuales y programas iconográficos. Valencia: Tirant Humanidades, 2023. 355 pp. [ISBN 978-8-419-47164-2]

Rubén Peretó Rivas — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Book review of Pazos-López, Ángel. Imágenes de la liturgia medieval. Planteamientos teóricos, temas visuales y programas iconográficos. Valencia: Tirant Humanidades, 2023. 355 pp. [ISBN 978-8-419-47164-2]

Pazos-López, Ángel y Cuesta Sánchez, Ana María, eds. Las imágenes de los animales fantásticos en la Edad Media. Gijón: Trea, 2022 [ISBN: 978-8-419-52521-5]

Laura Rodríguez Peinado — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Book review of Pazos-López, Ángel y Cuesta Sánchez, Ana María, eds. Las imágenes de los animales fantásticos en la Edad Media. Gijón: Trea, 2022 [ISBN: 978-8-419-52521-5]

Kaminska, Barbara A., Images of Miraculous Healing in the Early Modern Netherlands, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2021, [ISBN: 978-90-0442056-4].

Oscar Rojewski — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Cortés Arjona, José, et al. Las reliquias de Martioda. Historia y restauración. Álava: Diputación Foral de Álava, 2023 [ISBN: 9788412623284].

Estrella Sanz Domínguez — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000