Iconography as System. The Structural Principles of Representation in Visual Culture

Abstract

Summary This paper constitutes a reflexive and theoretical approach to the study of iconographies from a cultural perspective. Its aim is to depict iconographies as the structural order which makes images representative of the social frameworks from which they stem. By analysing the stable principles which participate in the production of such representativity in any given iconography, and by considering the cultural agents which socially regulate them and make images culturally specific, it is possible to understand the cultural mechanisms by which the social construction of reality is projected onto images. Consequently, this approach favours a conceptualisation of iconographies as cultural systems through which the identity of social frameworks is conveyed thanks to the use of images.