Allegory and symbol

Delacroix: Liberty Leading the People (1830)

ALLEGORY

(1) Allegory as a trope: abstract idea → concrete, sensual representationvertical levels (un)motivatedness personification allegory (e.g. Death as the Grim Reaper; Justitia)

„Time hath, my Lord, a wallet at his back whereain he puts Alms for Oblivion” (Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida)

• personification allegory

“Fear walks tall on this planet. Fear walks big and fat and fine ... One of these days, I’m going to walk right up to fear. Someone's got to do it ... Fear, I suspect, is really incredibly brave. Fear will lead me straight through the door, will prop me up in the alley among the crates and the empties, and show me who’s the boss ... When it comes to fighting, I'm brave... But fear really scares me.” (Martin Amis: Money)

Gentile da Fabriano: Adoration of the Magi

Andrea Mantegna: Adoration of the Magi

Lucas Cranach

(1534)

Hieronymus Bosch:

Superbia (Vanity)

(the Seven Deadly Sins)

Antonello da Messina:

St. Jerome in His Study

partridge

Carpaccio:

Annunci-ation

Goldfinch - crucifixion

ICONOGRAPHICTRADITION

• A set of traditional images: animals, plants, landscapes

• Worked like writing (rebus)

Francesco del Cossa: Annunciation

snail in Annunciation

Carlo Crivelli: Madonna with St Francis and St. Sebastian

Crivelli (detail)

The Lady and the Unicorn

Titian: „Sacred and Profane Love”

SYMBOLsymbol in aesthetics: not the same as symol in semiotics (icon -

index – symbol) or symbol in cultural anthropology

concrete → abstract levelsuggestion (rather than direct meaning)ambiguity untranslatable Lit: The house of the Ushers; the conch in

Golding

Caspar David Friedrich:

Wanderer above

the Sea of Fog

Friedrich: The Abbey in the Oakwood

Edward Burne-Jones: The Mirror of Venus

Arnold Böcklin: The Sacred Wood

Puvis de Chavannes: The Poor Fisherman