POPULAR ICONOGRAPHY. - Sacred images have also been represented in ways suited to the taste, beliefs, and needs of the common people, and through the work either of unskilled popular craftsmen or of artists who intentionally addressed themselves to the humble classes.
The statements of medieval texts (imagines sunt libri laicorum, invisibilia per visibilia) confirm the great importance that was attributed to the intrinsic value of representations. This gave rise to a rich and varied production, uninterrupted through the centuries, in which sometimes the lyrical synthesis proper to popular art found happy and intense expressions, while at other times coarseness and distortion prevailed, to the detriment of art. The graphic themes were handed down, like literary and hagiographic themes, adapting themselves to changing tastes: for example, seventeenth-century popular iconography accentuated lines and expressions inherited from medieval iconography, in the search for ever greater vividness. Thus the Ecce Homo was increasingly burdened with chains and his crown of thorns was represented with ever thicker spikes; the sorrowful Virgin appeared pierced by seven enormous swords. Characteristic are the false interpretations to which popular sacred iconography has given rise among the common people: it suffices to recall the legend of St. Kümmernis, born in the Flemish countries, to explain the image of the Volto Santo of Lucca, where the Crucified is depicted with long hair and the tunic. Fantastic motifs derived from popular iconography are also recognized in the legend of St. Anthony Abbot, of St. Christopher, etc. Since the invention of printing, popular iconography has had an extremely wide diffusion throughout Europe, by means of broadsheets and little books with woodcuts to which sometimes texts in verse or prose were added. The tradition has been preserved through the centuries down to recent times, gradually adopting new technical means, such as copper engravings, plain or colored lithographs, zincographs. Pilgrimages to sanctuaries, itinerant sellers of sacred images, and street singers have greatly contributed to the diffusion. Many of these images are found in country houses, and before them families recite the litanies before rest, or in stables for the protection of livestock. Similar depictions are painted on farm carts or on the prows of fishing boats. Of greater commitment is popular sacred iconography in rustic furniture, in ceramics, and in various household furnishings: and even more so in country and village chapels and churches, whether with wall paintings or with sculptures: here one arrives, without a break in continuity, all the way to high art. A particular aspect, which must be studied separately, is constituted by the tablets of ex-votos.
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Paolo Toschi