A Study On Erwin Panofsky's Theory Of "Disguised Symbolism"

The concept of "disguised symbolism" was formally published in the monograph Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character(1953)by German-American art historian and Iconologist Erwin Panofsky,and his article Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait(1934)as the prelude of the concept.Its theoretical connotation is a kind of visual art technique which makes the aesthetic object both the motif form and the symbolic implication in the motif form of the symbolic implication;its theoretical foundation is the so-called Panofsky's Three strata of Iconological interpretation.From the perspective of artistic expression,the technique of disguised symbolism can make the aesthetic object's motif form and symbolic implication independent of and do not offset each other;from the perspective of art reception,the iconological interpretating of disguised symbolism can be a special aesthetic experience activity because of the similarity between the iconological interpretation and the aesthetic experience.Disguised symbolism is a relative concept on symbolism.And its so-called "disguised",mainly embodied the difficulty of interpretating its visual text at the iconographical analysis level in its iconological interpretation process.It requirements aesthetic subject's cognitive ability in knowledge of literary and synthetic intuition,often higher than the general visual symbolism,and cannot be apparently noticed by the conscious mind of aesthetic subject immediately or easily;its symbolic content's extent of visual concealment will be different due to the subjective cognitive model of the aesthetic subject and the change of the objective time and space situation,which has the obvious relativity.Therefore,when applying this concept to iconological interpretation,it should clarify whether the object to interpretate has the conditions for iconological explanation and beware of the expansion of its interpretation.