From pictographs to pictograms to religious icons and emojis, iconography uses visual clues to help communicate ideas. Everyone knows what a “thumbs up” or a “happy face” means. Iconography even gives us an efficient way to expresses something as complicated as personal feelings or opinions with the use of emojis.
When we want to send something, we look for the “arrow”” icon, and we click on the familiar “shopping basket” to check out of an online store. We use iconography for everything from identifying a commercial brand by a symbol alone, or following roadside directions and safety precautions in a place of work. Today, the artform of iconography is prominent in graphic design. Frida Kahlo often used animal images (butterfly meant rebirth, for example) and Salvador Dalí’s egg denoted a soft exterior beneath a hard shell.
The word may be Greek, but the idea is universal, as cultures worldwide used pictures to symbolize words and ideas for centuries, from Egyptian hieroglyphics to Native American pictographsĪrtists through the ages used their own iconography in their works. This was the case in religious art: a lamb in a picture may symbolize Jesus in Christian churches, or a dove near an image of a woman may mean Venus in Greek mythology.
This term can refer to early, more elaborate paintings with certain images being attached to meaning. It comes from the Greek word for image, “ikon.” Iconography is everywhere, and we see it all the time. This summer’s Be the Artist 2021 will help readers discover visual art-related words.