Ancient Christian Iconography
Within the group of historical philosophical sciences concerned with the scientific reconstruction of the "ancient Christian world," ancient Christian iconography has the task of tracing in the products of ancient Christian art all the information that can shed light on the Christian culture of the early times. Its activity, therefore, unfolds on the basis of those monuments and monumental remains that offer figurative representations, studied not as artistic creations corresponding to aesthetic ends (a viewpoint reserved for art history), but in their content.
Initially considered a rather analytical and descriptive science (iconography), limited to the search for the true meaning of iconographic themes and motifs and the scientific method to discover it, iconography, increasingly intent on historical aims and aided by a progressive clarification of its own laws, has in recent times been transformed into a more "penetrative" and synthetic science, to which the name iconology would be more appropriate.
Indeed, it no longer limits its efforts to the identification of the subject, to the description of figures or scenes and their subsequent graphic evolutions, or to the establishment of more or less well-classified groups. The work of art, considered as a manifestation of thought and in the service of higher purposes, once its figurative genre has been determined (symbolic, typological, allegorical, cyclic, or narrative), is not only situated within the general chain of the genetic developments of Christian art found both in space and time, but is also studied in all its constituent elements, even the most hidden ones, until, through the various ideological influences contributing to its creation, it reaches the entire inspirational concept to which it owes its existence. The image created to serve as a vehicle of ideas and sentiments between the creator and the beholder, for the iconologist becomes, conversely, a sign, a symbol, a mirror, a document rich in information about the beliefs, states of mind, ways of seeing, customs, and purposes of a given religion or civilization.
Between iconography and art history there is a certain difference, but difference does not mean, or should not mean, antagonism, since one is an aid and complement to the other. Even if in certain cases it becomes difficult to establish where the task of the iconographer ends and that of the art historian begins, or vice versa, in principle it can be said that for the former the formal element, as such, is not of direct interest (even a representation devoid of beauty remains for him a precious testimony), whereas for the latter, even if he intends to reach through artistic creation the inner world of the creator, aesthetic, stylistic, and technical quality and its vicissitudes are of primary importance. The two sciences, however, cannot be entirely separated; they should rather aim for close collaboration. The genetic study of iconographic themes is indeed impossible without clear geographical delimitations and secure chronological datings, often obtained solely through stylistic analysis, while the analysis of schemes and the evaluation of iconographic groups or complexes can safeguard stylistic research against deviations and errors in its conclusions. If both sciences, in short, have as their material object figurative creations, what is the end for one almost always becomes the means for the other.
A subsidiary science of the history of Christian art, iconography is also, in some cases, of theology, insofar as it succeeds in illustrating the various and successive aspects of faith and popular beliefs reflected in works of art.
The material on which iconographic research extends is vast. Excluding purely decorative motifs, considered only insofar as they may offer criteria for dating or provenance, the iconographic repertoire includes representations of God and the Persons of the Holy Trinity, of good and evil angels, of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, of events from the Old and New Testaments, of the Church and its mission, of eschatological events, of liturgical rites, and all symbolic signs or allegorical compositions of a dogmatic or moral character, or that in some way express faith, devotion, or worship.
It is for the iconologist (and it is one of his most difficult tasks) to distinguish motifs that are merely ornamental from those that, even if they appear to serve only decorative purposes, are not entirely devoid of symbolic meaning because they still carry the last reflections of past symbolisms or those in the process of being abandoned. The various techniques employed by the figurative arts interest iconography only insofar as the requirements of the materials used may have influenced the scheme or details of the iconographic compositions, and even the choice and frequency of the themes themselves.
The method used by iconography to achieve scientific results is still in the process of refinement and cannot yet be clearly formulated. For the collection of iconographic materials and their criticism, it follows more or less the norms of historical or archaeological sciences in general. In the final iconographic presentation or synthesis, it aims to elaborate a faithful and complete image, to give in words the equivalent (neither more nor less) of what the artists in question intended to express with their works, understood not only as more or less skilled decorators, but also as witnesses of the culture in which they lived and driven by specific motives in the choice and elaboration of their subjects. As for the proper exegesis of works of art, which is increasingly desired to be objective and solidly motivated, Christian iconography now has no small number of means and principles that have already allowed it to achieve notable results.
The starting point of this work is a precise chronology (relative or absolute) of the products of Christian art, no longer considered in isolation, but possibly in continuous comparison with profane art and in the light of the history of civilization and religion. Once the coexistence of two traditions, one literary and the other figurative, often but not always in agreement with each other, has been established, recourse is logically made to the latter as the most direct source, and to the former as an aid where there is agreement of intent.
Priority is given to figurative tradition and the iconographic fact because any argumentative or definitional art, in which content or meaning predominates, can and must be considered a kind of language “sui generis,” possessing its own vocabulary and grammar that can be formulated, codified, and further employed as means of understanding. Christian iconography therefore relies first and foremost on a thorough analysis of the representations themselves, down to the smallest details, examining compositional schemes, the distribution and number of figures, their postures and gestures, their characteristics and attributes, their garments and the environment in which they move, the interplay of correspondences and contrasts, the intended purpose of the representation, and its relationship to the object it adorns. For greater clarity and certainty, the work under examination is compared with other works of art, first with those of the same family and preferably those immediately preceding or contemporary, and secondarily with those belonging to other groups, even non-Christian ones, that offer elements of resemblance. What may not be entirely clear in one work becomes clear through comparison with another. The eye sensitive to interferences and discrepancies discovers meanings, nuances of thought, modifications and developments, evaluates, distinguishes and groups, gains panoramic views of complexes and ramifications, and ultimately discerns the underlying laws, intentions, and concepts.
In the second place, without thereby falling into a petitio principii, Christian iconography utilizes other sources not belonging to the domain of art, which for convenience may be called literary. Inscriptions that sometimes accompany the very iconographic representations, epigraphic material, Holy Scripture and the apocrypha, patristic literature, liturgical texts, hagiographic and mystical sources, mythological, cosmographic, and symbolic traditions, etc., when used judiciously—especially where they reveal conceptions or beliefs widely held in a given period—lend Christian iconography the support of their confirmation or even the means to understand what the examination of art alone could not clarify.
Since the existence of Christian iconography, treatises—and thus iconographic research—have been divided according to subjects, arranged in order of their dogmatic or religious importance. This division is convenient both for authors and for those seeking objective information. The future may reveal whether it would not be better to replace this system, or at least to adopt alongside it a true organic history of iconographic themes that would allow one to follow, period by period, the reflections of Christian thought in figurative art. Certainly the “historical” method, precisely because it highlights the numerous intersections of various themes in a given period and opens a broader perspective on what might be called iconographic complexes, not only ensures a more accurate evaluation of them but also leads to a more coherent view of the life of Christian thought over the centuries.
Two particular questions are of some importance for Christian iconography: one concerning the intimate nature of Paleo-Christian art, and the other concerning the earliest origins of this art.
There is general agreement in recognizing that ancient Christian art, like medieval art, has as its prevailing aim the communication of Christian thought. To put it in an inelegant word, it is to a large extent a content-driven art. It therefore lends a certain value as signs and symbols to the forms it employs. But whether, in its intimate nature, it goes beyond this apparent symbolism to communicate, through the signs themselves, ideas or sentiments not directly expressed by them has not always been accepted by all. Setting aside representations in which the form itself acquires symbolic or allegorical character (ICHTHYS = Christ; the Last Judgment with the faithful represented by lambs), the question remains whether Christian art, beyond merely depicting a biblical, ritual, or other event (Noah in the ark, a banquet, etc.), also intends to suggest, through typological, symbolic, or allegorical means, a more hidden spiritual concept intelligible only to initiates in the Christian faith or mysteries (salvation, the Eucharist, etc.). Furthermore, it is asked whether this symbolism is of a funerary or eschatological character (in funerary decorations) or instead escapes a more general, dogmatic-moral direction.
After the exaggerations of the early iconographic schools, which pushed symbolic-dogmatic interpretation to the point of arriving at a multiplicity of different interpretations of the same subject, a strong reaction emerged (Isasenelev, Styger), which, driven by the desire to find a unifying principle of exegesis, denied Paleo-Christian art, one might say, any symbolic value, attributing to it a merely illustrative function. From one exaggeration, they fell into another. Today the symbolic character of this art is generally admitted; opinions differ only in specifying which concept in this symbolism constitutes the fundamental principle capable of giving it a certain unity of direction. It is likely that, with the progress of specialized research and the refinement of method, the definitive solution will impose itself naturally.
Regarding the earliest origins of Paleo-Christian art—a question that primarily concerns the history of art—it cannot be denied that the solution to some iconographic problems would be easier if this question were more clearly resolved, although its importance should not be exaggerated. It has not yet been possible to determine a single center that developed and disseminated the first works of Christian art. While for a long time Rome was recognized as having this prerogative, a reaction came from the “Orientalists.” The name of Strzygowski is now famous: he initially gave precedence to important Hellenistic centers in the East (Alexandria, Asia Minor, Antioch), then to the more remote East (Edessa, Mesopotamia, Iran), and finally placed great importance on North Asian and North European influences that came through India into the Near East. He was followed, to varying degrees and with differing preferences, by Wulff, Baumstark, Diehl, Dalton, Kaufmann, Toesca, Morey, and others. The so-called “Romanists” (Wilpert, von Sybel, Schultze, Sauer, Rodenwaldt, etc.), on the other hand, consider Paleo-Christian art as a branch of Roman Hellenistic art. It is not always easy to determine whether the arguments of individual authors refer specifically to the beginnings of ancient Christian art or instead to the origins of post-Constantinian art (since there is also a “Byzantine question”).
According to all probability, Christian art was conceived almost simultaneously in the various important Christian centers, using the universally diffused artistic forms imbued with local influences. The question of exchanges is of “secondary” order. Yet numerous discoveries and careful specialized studies on the characteristics of each region and on reciprocal influences, based on chronologically well-dated monuments, will be needed before we can more precisely move from hypothesis to established facts.
In the literary history of Christian iconography, four salient phases can be distinguished.
The first notable attempt to restore importance to Christian iconographic monuments was made by Molanus (Jan Vermeulen) in *De picturis et imaginibus sacris* (1570), a work entirely imbued with the spirit of the Counter-Reformation.
After the discovery of the catacombs in 1578, much is owed to Bosio (Roma sotterranea, posthumous, 1632), alongside whom stand Macario (Jean L’Heureux), Ciacconio, and Van Winge. They are followed by Reiske, De imaginibus Jesu Christi (1685), Ciampini, Vetere monumenta (1690), and Arnold, Wahre Abbildungen der ersten Christen im Glauben u. Leben (1700).
While no great importance can be attached to the period of the philosophers, the French Romantics, under the influence of Chateaubriand, laid the first foundations of an iconographic science, and in the following generation the first comprehensive works appeared.
The names include: Seroux d’Agnicourt, Histoire de l’art par les monuments (6 vols., 1811–23); R. Raoul Rochette, Discours sur les types imitatifs (1834); A. Didron, Iconographie chrétienne: Histoire de Dieu (1843); id., Annales archéologiques (1844–67); Ch. Cahier and A. Martin, Méthodes d’archéologie et d’histoire (1847–56) and Nouveaux mélanges (1874–77); A. Crosnier, Iconographie chrétienne (1848–76). In Germany the following appeared: V. Wessenberg, Die christlichen Bilder (1827); Müller, Die bildlichen Darstellungen im Sanctuarium (1835); J. V. Radowitz, Ikonographie (1834); Helmsdorfer, Christl. Kunstsymbolik u. Ikonographie (1839); F. Piper, Mythologie u. Symbolik der christl. Kunst (1847); W. Menzel, Christl. Symbolik (1854); A. Springer, Ikonographische Studien (1860); Quelle der Kunstdarstellungen im Mittelalter (1879), in which a notable scientific precision is already evident.
The true historical method, aimed at illuminating the nature of Paleo-Christian art, is owed to G. B. De Rossi (d. 1894). His immense scholarly activity inaugurated a period in which, alongside monumental collections of materials, encyclopedias, handbooks, periodicals, and general chapters in major art histories, specialized studies (monographs) multiplied in every direction; the value to be attributed to various literary sources and to the history of religion was increasingly clarified; the comparison between Christianity and other ancient cultures was exploited more effectively; the chronology of monuments was progressively clarified; and research was extended to Eastern monuments. Among the numerous scholars, let the following be simply recalled: in Rome: R. Garrucci, M. Armellini, O. Marucchi, A. De Waal, Hartmann Grisar, G. Wilpert, A. Venturi, G. P. Kirsch, P. Toesca, G. de Jerphanion, F. Grossi Gondi; in France: E. Le Blant, Ch. Bayet, E. Müntz, J. Martigny, C. Rohault de Fleury, H. Barbier de Montault, G. Millet, Ch. Diehl, L. Bréhier, H. Leclercq; in Germany: H. Detzel, F. X. Kraus, V. Schultze, J. Ficker, G. Stuhlfauth, L. V. Sybel, O. Wulff, J. Sauer, W. Neuss, K. Künstle, F. J. Dölger; in England: A. Jameson, O. Dalton, W. E. Crum; finally, to be remembered: J. Strzygowski, N. Kondakov, D. V. Ainalov, P. Styger.
The Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology, founded by Pius XI in 1925 to gather existing results and coordinate further research, equipped with rich collections and a specialized library, has already made a notable contribution to Paleo-Christian iconography through its courses and publications.