The study of iconography—how symbols and allegories function in art—offers a way to understand masterpieces that have puzzled scholars for generations. In the first program of a series, art historian Noah Charney demonstrates how learning the meaning of a few dozen recurring symbols allows viewers to decode most pre-modern Western art.
Artworks once served as books for the illiterate, with a limited number of literary sources forming the basis for most Old Master paintings. Charney examines how viewers of the time decoded images through an allegorical and symbolic lens as he focuses on Jan Van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait of 1434, a masterpiece filled with symbolism that opens the door to this lost visual language.
Additional Secret and Symbols in Art Program
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