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84-774: In classical religious iconography or mythological art, three separate beings may represent either a triad who typically appear as a group (the Greek Moirai , Charites , and Erinyes ; the Norse Norns ; or the Irish Morrígan ) or a single deity notable for having three aspects (Greek Hecate , Roman Diana ). Georges Dumézil proposed in his trifunctional hypothesis that ancient Indo-European society conceived of itself as structured around three activities: worship, war, and toil. As social structures developed, particular segments of societies became more closely associated with one of

168-539: A Romanised form of Greek mystery rite, the ritus graecia cereris . This was part of Rome's religious recruitment of deities to serve as divine allies against Carthage, towards the end of the Second Punic War . In the late Republican era, Cicero described Liber and Libera as Ceres' children. At around the same time, Hyginus equated Libera with Greek Ariadne . The older and newer forms of her names, cult, and rites, and their diverse associations, persisted well into

252-510: A fresco by Pomarancio , J. Heintz, Rubens , A. Dürer , Dell'Abbate , Parrish ) and in literature ( Goethe's Proserpina and Swinburne's Hymn to Proserpine and The Garden of Proserpine ). The statue of the Rape of Prosepina by Pluto that stands in the Great Garden of Dresden , Germany is also referred to as "Time Ravages Beauty". Kate McGarrigle 's song about the legend was one of

336-525: A male public priesthood . Ceres was by far the senior of the three, one of the dii consentes , Rome's approximate equivalent to the Greek Twelve Olympians . She was identified with Greek Demeter and Liber was identified with Bacchus and Dionysus . Libera is sometimes described as a female version of Liber Pater, concerned with female fertility. Otherwise she is given no clear identity or mythology by Roman sources, and no Greek equivalent. Nothing

420-472: A modern imposition onto Indo-European religion rather than an idea present in the society itself. Vesna Petreska posits that myths including trinities of female mythical beings from Central and Eastern European cultures may be evidence for an Indo-European belief in trimutive female " spinners " of destiny. However, according to the linguist M. L. West , various female deities and mythological figures in Europe show

504-752: A more scientific manner than the popular aesthetic approach of the time. These early contributions paved the way for encyclopedias , manuals, and other publications useful in identifying the content of art. Mâle's l'Art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France (originally 1899, with revised editions) translated into English as The Gothic Image, Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century has remained continuously in print. In early twentieth-century Germany , Aby Warburg (1866–1929) and his followers Fritz Saxl (1890–1948) and Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968) elaborated

588-474: A particular depiction of a subject in terms of the content of the image, such as the number of figures used, their placing and gestures. The term is also used in many academic fields other than art history, for example semiotics , media studies , and archaeology, and in general usage, for the content of images, the typical depiction in images of a subject, and related senses. Sometimes distinctions have been made between iconology and iconography , although

672-631: A sample of N=1,437 child sexual abuse (CSA) online press articles that included 419 stock photos, a CSA iconography (i.e. a set of typical image motifs for a topic) was revealed that relate to criminal reporting: The CSA iconography visualizes 1. crime contexts, 2. course of the crime and people involved, and 3. consequences of the crime for the people involved (e.g., image motif: perpetrator in handcuffs). Proserpina Proserpina ( / p r oʊ ˈ s ɜːr p ɪ n ə / proh- SUR -pih-nə ; Latin: [proːˈsɛrpɪna] ) or Proserpine ( / ˈ p r ɒ s ər p aɪ n / PROSS -ər-pyne )

756-460: A snake-bite; Proserpina allowed Orpheus into Hades without losing his life; charmed by his music, she allowed him to lead his wife back to the land of the living, as long as he did not look back during the journey. But Orpheus could not resist a backward glance, so Eurydice was forever lost to him. Proserpina's figure inspired many artistic compositions, eminently in sculpture ( Bernini , see The Rape of Proserpina ) in painting (D.G.Rossetti,

840-460: A specialist on early medieval churches and another German émigré, extended iconographical analysis to architectural forms . The period from 1940 can be seen as one where iconography was especially prominent in art history. Whereas most iconographical scholarship remains highly dense and specialized, some analyses began to attract a much wider audience, for example Panofsky 's theory (now generally out of favour with specialists of that picture) that

924-554: A temple established around 493 BC on the Aventine Hill at state expense, promised by Rome's governing class to the plebs (Rome's citizen-commoners), who had threatened secession. Collectively, these three deities were divine patrons and protectors of Rome's commoner-citizens, and guardians of Rome's senatorial records and written laws, housed at the temple soon after its foundation. Libera might have been offered cult on March 17 during Liber's festival, Liberalia , or at some time during

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1008-503: A thousand years ago, though development, and some shifts in meaning, have occurred – for example, the old man wearing a fleece in conversation with Saint Joseph usually seen in Orthodox Nativities seems to have begun as one of the shepherds, or the prophet Isaiah , but is now usually understood as the "Tempter" ( Satan ). In both East and West, numerous iconic types of Christ , Mary and saints and other subjects were developed;

1092-540: A threefold unity of the divine huntress, the Moon goddess and the goddess of the nether world, Hekate ". This coin shows that the triple goddess cult image still stood in the lucus of Nemi in 43 BC. The Lake of Nemi was Triviae lacus for Virgil ( Aeneid 7.516), while Horace called Diana montium custos nemoremque virgo ("keeper of the mountains and virgin of Nemi") and diva triformis ("three-form goddess"). In his commentary on Virgil , Maurus Servius Honoratus said that

1176-685: A well-educated contemporary. The subtle layers of meaning uncovered by modern iconographical research in works of Robert Campin such as the Mérode Altarpiece , and of Jan van Eyck such as the Madonna of Chancellor Rolin and the Washington Annunciation lie in small details of what are on first viewing very conventional representations. When Italian painting developed a taste for enigma, considerably later, it most often showed in secular compositions influenced by Renaissance Neo-Platonism . From

1260-551: A wide range of triple forms: the most common triadic depiction is that of the triple mother goddess" (she lists numerous examples). In the case of the Irish Brigid it can be ambiguous whether she is a single goddess or three sisters, all named Brigid. The Morrígan also appears sometimes as one being, and at other times as three sisters, as do the three Irish goddesses of sovereignty , Ériu , Fódla and Banba . Nicene Christians profess "one God in three divine persons" ( God

1344-668: A wrathful deity but in few contexts is depicted in pacified mood. Although iconic depictions of, or concentrating on, a single figure are the dominant type of Buddhist image, large stone relief or fresco narrative cycles of the Life of the Buddha , or tales of his previous lives, are found at major sites like Sarnath , Ajanta , and Borobudor , especially in earlier periods. Conversely, in Hindu art, narrative scenes have become rather more common in recent centuries, especially in miniature paintings of

1428-493: Is "Kore" ('the maiden'), taken against her will; in the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries , her captor is known as Hades; they form a divine couple who rule the underworld together, and receive Eleusinian initiates into some form of better afterlife. Renamed Pluto, the king of the underworld is distanced from his violent abduction of his consort. In 27 BC Vergil presented his own version of the myth, in his Georgics . In

1512-401: Is Luna, and her earthly name is Diana . The exclusively female initiates and priestesses of the new " Greek-style " mysteries of Ceres and Proserpina were expected to uphold Rome's traditional, patrician -dominated social hierarchy and traditional morality . Unmarried girls were expected to emulate the chastity of Proserpina, the maiden; married women were expected to seek to emulate Ceres,

1596-434: Is a concern of other academic disciplines including Semiotics , Anthropology , Sociology , Media Studies , Communication Studies , and Cultural Studies . These analyses in turn have affected conventional art history, especially concepts such as signs in semiotics . Discussing imagery as iconography in this way implies a critical "reading" of imagery that often attempts to explore social and cultural values. Iconography

1680-613: Is added. It also indicates the three basic states of consciousness, in addition to which the whole syllable is interpreted as the subject of the consciousness, the self-principle ( Ātman ), which is considered to be identical with the Brahman. The Tridevi is the trinity of goddess consorts for the gods in the Trimurti, typically personified by the Hindu goddesses Saraswati , Lakshmi , and Parvati . In Shaktism , these triune goddesses are considered

1764-415: Is also used within film studies to describe the visual language of cinema, particularly within the field of genre criticism . In the age of Internet, the new global history of the visual production of Humanity (Histiconologia ) includes History of Art and history of all kind of images or medias. Contemporary iconography research often draws on theories of visual framing to address such diverse issues as

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1848-495: Is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of Greek Persephone . Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera , whose principal cult was housed in the Aventine temple of the grain-goddess Ceres , along with the wine god Liber . Each of these three deities occupied their own cella at the temple. Their cults were served or supervised by

1932-456: Is considered the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. The sacred symbol of Hinduism, the Om (or Aum), the sacred sound, syllable, mantra, and invocation, is considered to have an allusion to Trimurti, where the A, U, and M phonemes of the word are considered to indicate creation, preservation and destruction, the which the whole as representing the transcendent or absolute Brahman

2016-633: Is known of her native iconography: her name translates as a feminine form of Liber, "the free one". Proserpina's name is a Latinisation of "Persephone", perhaps influenced by the Latin proserpere ("to emerge, to creep forth"), with reference to the growing of grain. Proserpina was imported from southern Italy as part of an official religious strategy, towards the end of the second Punic war , when antagonism between Rome's lower and upper social classes, crop failures and intermittent famine were thought to be signs of divine wrath, provoked by Roman impiety. The new cult

2100-587: The Catacombs of Rome show orans figures, portraits of Christ and some saints, and a limited number of "abbreviated representations" of biblical episodes emphasizing deliverance. From the Constantinian period monumental art borrowed motifs from Roman Imperial imagery, classical Greek and Roman religion and popular art – the motif of Christ in Majesty owes something to both Imperial portraits and depictions of Zeus . In

2184-530: The Franciscans , as were many other developments. Most painters remained content to copy and slightly modify the works of others, and it is clear that the clergy, by whom or for whose churches most art was commissioned, often specified what they wanted shown in great detail. The theory of typology , by which the meaning of most events of the Old Testament was understood as a "type" or pre-figuring of an event in

2268-629: The Greek εἰκών ("image") and γράφειν ("to write" or to draw ). A secondary meaning (based on a non-standard translation of the Greek and Russian equivalent terms) is the production or study of the religious images, called " icons ", in the Byzantine and Orthodox Christian tradition. This usage is mostly found in works translated from languages such as Greek or Russian, with the correct term being "icon painting". In art history , "an iconography" may also mean

2352-581: The Late Antique period iconography began to be standardized, and to relate more closely to Biblical texts, although many gaps in the canonical Gospel narratives were plugged with matter from the apocryphal gospels . Eventually, the Church would succeed in weeding most of these out, but some remain, like the ox and ass in the Nativity of Christ . After the period of Byzantine iconoclasm iconographical innovation

2436-413: The pomegranate seeds he offers her; those who have eaten the food of the dead cannot return to the world of the living. Pluto insists that she had willingly eaten his pomegranate seeds and in return she must stay with him for half the year. Virgil asserts that Proserpina agrees to this, and is reluctant to ascend from the underworld and re-unite with her mother. When Ceres greets her daughter's return to

2520-445: The 15th century religious painting gradually freed itself from the habit of following earlier compositional models, and by the 16th century ambitious artists were expected to find novel compositions for each subject, and direct borrowings from earlier artists are more often of the poses of individual figures than of whole compositions. The Reformation soon restricted most Protestant religious painting to Biblical scenes conceived along

2604-547: The Father , God the Son and God the Holy Ghost ), Modalism is a form of Christian Unitarianism which stands in opposition to Trinitarianism and holds that the one God is also just one person, but simply appears in three different forms; those forms being the Father, Son, and Spirit. Modalism holds that the same one God simply appears in different forms throughout history. For example, Jesus

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2688-511: The Father , God the Son and God the Holy Spirit ). This is not to be understood as a belief in (or worship of) three Gods , nor as a belief that there are three subjectively-perceived "aspects" in one God, both of which the Catholic Church condemns as heresy . The Catholic Church also rejects the notions that God is "composed" of its three persons and that "God" is a genus containing

2772-593: The Index of Medieval Art (formerly Index of Christian Art) at Princeton (which has made a specialism of iconography since its early days in America). These are now being digitised and made available online, usually on a restricted basis. With the arrival of computing, the Iconclass system, a highly complex system for the classification of the content of images, with 40,000+ classification types, and 84,000 (14,000 unique) keywords,

2856-513: The Republic and Empire. A Temple of Proserpina was located in a suburb of Melite , in modern Mtarfa , Malta . The temple's ruins were quarried away between the 17th and 18th centuries; only a few fragments survive. The best-known myth surrounding Proserpina is of her abduction by the god of the Underworld, her mother Ceres' frantic search for her, and her eventual but temporary restitution to

2940-753: The Virgin , parts of the Old Testament, and, increasingly, the lives of popular saints . Especially in the West, a system of attributes developed for identifying individual figures of saints by a standard appearance and symbolic objects held by them; in the East, they were more likely to identified by text labels. From the Romanesque period sculpture on churches became increasingly important in Western art, and probably partly because of

3024-632: The collections of the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin and the German Marburger Index . These are available, usually on-line or on DVD . The system can also be used outside pure art history, for example on sites like Flickr . Religious images are used to some extent by all major religions, including both Indian and Abrahamic faiths, and often contain highly complex iconography, which reflects centuries of accumulated tradition. Secular Western iconography later drew upon these themes. Central to

3108-750: The definitions, and so the distinction made, varies. When referring to movies, genres are immediately recognizable through their iconography, motifs that become associated with a specific genre through repetition. Early Western writers who took special note of the content of images include Giorgio Vasari , whose Ragionamenti interpreted the paintings in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence . Ragionamenti reassuringly demonstrates that such works were difficult to understand even for well-informed contemporaries. Lesser known, though it had informed poets, painters and sculptors for over two centuries after its 1593 publication,

3192-520: The devoted and fruitful Mother. Their rites were intended to secure a good harvest, and increase the fertility of those who partook in the mysteries. Each of the Aventine triad's deities continued to receive cult in their own right. Liber's open, gender-mixed cult and festivals continued, though likely caught up in the suppression of the Bacchanalia some twenty years on. Proserpina's individual cult, and her joint cult with Ceres became widespread throughout

3276-463: The early 1st century AD, Ovid gives two poetic versions: one in Book ;5 of his Metamorphoses and another in Book 4 of his Fasti An early 5th century AD Latin version of the same myth is Claudian 's De raptu Proserpinae ; in most cases, these Latin works identify Proserpina's underworld abductor and later consort as Dis . In Claudian's version, the unprepossessing Dis yearns for

3360-432: The entry, " Hecate : A triple deity, called Phoebe or the Moon in heaven, Diana on the earth, and Hecate or Proserpine in hell," and noted that "Chinese have the triple goddess Pussa". The Roman poet Ovid , through the character of the Greek woman Medea , refers to Hecate as "the triple Goddess"; the earlier Greek poet Hesiod represents her as a threefold goddess, with a share in earth, sea, and starry heavens. Hecate

3444-635: The iconography and hagiography of Indian religions are mudra or gestures with specific meanings. Other features include the aureola and halo , also found in Christian and Islamic art, and divine qualities and attributes represented by asana and ritual tools such as the dharmachakra , vajra , chhatra , sauwastika , phurba and danda . The symbolic use of colour to denote the Classical Elements or Mahabhuta and letters and bija syllables from sacred alphabetic scripts are other features. Under

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3528-421: The iconography of climate change created by different stakeholders, the iconography that international organizations create about natural disasters, the iconography of epidemics disseminated in the press, and the iconography of suffering found in social media. An iconography study in communication science analyzed stock photos used in press reporting to depict the social issue of child sexual abuse. Based on

3612-523: The identification of visual content) and "iconology" (the analysis of the meaning of that content), has not been generally accepted, though it is still used by some writers. In the United States , to which Panofsky immigrated in 1931, students such as Frederick Hartt , and Meyer Schapiro continued under his influence in the discipline. In an influential article of 1942, Introduction to an "Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture" , Richard Krautheimer ,

3696-545: The influence of pre-Indo-European goddess-worship, and triple female fate divinities, typically "spinners" of destiny, are attested all over Europe and in Bronze Age Anatolia. The trinity of supreme divinity in Hinduism , in which the cosmic functions of creation, preservation, and destruction are personified as a triad of deities, is called Trimūrti (Sanskrit: त्रिमूर्ति 'three forms' or 'trinity'), where Brahma

3780-509: The influence of tantra art developed esoteric meanings, accessible only to initiates; this is an especially strong feature of Tibetan art . The art of Indian Religions esp. Hindus in its numerous sectoral divisions is governed by sacred texts called the Aagama which describes the ratio and proportion of the icon, called taalmaana as well as mood of the central figure in a context. For example, Narasimha an incarnation of Vishnu though considered

3864-571: The joys of married love and fatherhood, and threatens to make war on the other gods if he remains alone in Erebus . The Fates ( Parcae ), who determine the destinies of all, arrange a future marriage for Dis, to prevent the outbreak of war. Jupiter orders Venus to bring love to Dis, in fulfillment of the prophecy. Ceres has already sought to conceal the innocent Proserpina by sending her to safety in Sicily , Ceres' earthly home and sanctuary; but Dis comes out from

3948-533: The lack of Byzantine models, became the location of much iconographic innovation, along with the illuminated manuscript , which had already taken a decisively different direction from Byzantine equivalents, under the influence of Insular art and other factors. Developments in theology and devotional practice produced innovations like the subject of the Coronation of the Virgin and the Assumption , Both associated with

4032-455: The last things she wrote prior to her death, and received its only performance at her last concert at Royal Albert Hall in December 2009. ... Diti patri dedicata est, qui dives ut apud Graecos Plouton, quia et recidunt omnia in terras et oriuntur e terris, Cui Proserpinam (quod Graecorum nomen est, ea enim est quae Persefone Graece nominatur) — quam frugum semen esse volunt absconditamque quaeri

4116-410: The late Imperial era. St. Augustine (354–430 AD) wrote that Libera was a goddess of female fertility, just as Liber was a god of male fertility. Proserpina was officially introduced to Rome as the daughter of Ceres in the newly Romanised cult of "Mother and Daughter". The cult's origins lay in southern Italy, which was politically allied to Rome but culturally a part of Magna Graecia . The cult

4200-613: The life of, or aspect of, Christ or Mary was often reflected in art, and in the later Middle Ages came to dominate the choice of Old Testament scenes in Western Christian art. Whereas in the Romanesque and Gothic periods the great majority of religious art was intended to convey often complex religious messages as clearly as possible, with the arrival of Early Netherlandish painting iconography became highly sophisticated, and in many cases appears to be deliberately enigmatic, even for

4284-640: The lines of history painting , and after some decades the Catholic Council of Trent reined in somewhat the freedom of Catholic artists. Secular painting became far more common in the West from the Renaissance, and developed its own traditions and conventions of iconography, in history painting , which includes mythologies , portraits , genre scenes , and even landscapes , not to mention modern media and genres like photography , cinema , political cartoons , comic books . Renaissance mythological painting

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4368-526: The literary figure of Morgan le Fay as a manifestation of a British triple goddess in the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight . A modern idea of a triple goddess is central to the new religious movement of Wicca . Hecate will never join in that offence: Unjust is the request you make, and I In kindness your petition shall deny; Yet she that grants not what you do implore, Shall yet essay to give her Jason more; Find means t' encrease

4452-455: The lives of Krishna and Rama . Christian art features Christian iconography, prominently developed in the medieval era and renaissance , and is a prominent aspect of Christian media . Aniconism was rejected within Christian theology from the outset, and the development of early Christian art and architecture occurred within the first seven centuries after Jesus . Small images in

4536-463: The manifestations of Mahadevi , the Supreme Goddess (the female abolute), also known as Mula-Prakriti or Adi Parashakti. The Roman goddess Diana was venerated from the late sixth century BC as diva triformis , "three-form goddess", and early on was conflated with the similarly depicted Greek goddess Hekate . Andreas Alföldi interpreted a late Republican numismatic image as Diana "conceived as

4620-459: The meaning of Christian images and architecture is closely linked to the content of biblical , liturgical and theological texts, which were usually considered authoritative by most patrons, artists and viewers. Technological advances allowed the building-up of huge collections of photographs, with an iconographic arrangement or index, which include those of the Warburg Institute and

4704-561: The mid-first to third century AD. Miranda Green observes that "triplism" reflects a way of "expressing the divine rather than presentation of specific god-types. Triads or triple beings are ubiquitous in the Welsh and Irish mythic imagery" (she gives examples including the Irish battle-furies, Macha , and Brigit ). "The religious iconographic repertoire of Gaul and Britain during the Roman period includes

4788-606: The nineteenth century in the works of scholars such as Adolphe Napoleon Didron (1806–1867), Anton Heinrich Springer (1825–1891), and Émile Mâle (1862–1954) all specialists in Christian religious art, which was the main focus of study in this period, in which French scholars were especially prominent. They looked back to earlier attempts to classify and organise subjects encyclopedically like Cesare Ripa and Anne Claude Philippe de Caylus 's Recueil d'antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, grècques, romaines et gauloises as guides to understanding works of art, both religious and profane, in

4872-502: The number of named types of icons of Mary, with or without the infant Christ, was especially large in the East, whereas Christ Pantocrator was much the commonest image of Christ. Especially important depictions of Mary include the Hodegetria and Panagia types. Traditional models evolved for narrative paintings, including large cycles covering the events of the Life of Christ , the Life of

4956-539: The practice of identification and classification of motifs in images to using iconography as a means to understanding meaning. Panofsky codified an influential approach to iconography in his 1939 Studies in Iconology , where he defined it as "the branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to form," although the distinction he and other scholars drew between particular definitions of "iconography" (put simply,

5040-446: The publications of Erwin Panofsky, has been critically discussed since the mid-1950s, in part also strongly ( Otto Pächt , Svetlana Alpers ). However, among the critics, no one has found a model of interpretation that could completely replace that of Panofsky. As regards the interpretation of Christian art , that Panofsky researched throughout his life, the iconographic interest in texts as possible sources remains important, because

5124-400: The same goddess was called Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Proserpina in hell. Spells and hymns in Greek magical papyri refer to the goddess (called Hecate , Persephone , and Selene , among other names) as "triple-sounding, triple-headed, triple-voiced..., triple-pointed, triple-faced, triple-necked". In one hymn, for instance, the "Three-faced Selene" is simultaneously identified as

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5208-429: The seven days of Cerealia , held in mid-to-late April; in the latter festival, she would have been subordinate to Ceres; the names of both Liber and Libera were a later addition to Ceres's festival. Otherwise, Libera's functional relationship to her Aventine cult partners is uncertain. She has no known native iconography or mythology. Libera was officially identified as Proserpina from 205 BC, when she and Ceres acquired

5292-481: The stock of Aeson's years, Without retrenchment of your life's arrears; Provided that the triple Goddess join A strong confed'rate in my bold design. Iconography Iconography , as a branch of art history , studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct from artistic style . The word iconography comes from

5376-414: The three Charites , the three Moirai , and the three Erinyes ; she is further addressed by the titles of several goddesses. Translation editor Hans Dieter Betz notes: "The goddess Hekate, identical with Persephone, Selene, Artemis, and the old Babylonian goddess Ereschigal , is one of the deities most often invoked in the papyri." E. Cobham Brewer 's 1894 Dictionary of Phrase & Fable contained

5460-587: The three fundamental activities. These segments, in turn, became entrenched as three distinct "classes", each one represented by its own god. In 1970, Dumézil proposed that some goddesses represented these three qualities as different aspects or epithets. Interpreting various deities, including the Iranian Anāhitā and the Roman Juno , he identified what were, in his view, examples of this. Dumézil's trifunctional hypothesis proved controversial. Many critics view it as

5544-731: The three persons. The c. fourth-century Gnostic text " Trimorphic Protennoia " presents a threefold discourse of the three forms of Divine Thought: the Father, the Son, and the Mother ( Sophia ). Micheus, Michar, and Mnesinous , the three heavenly spirits of baptism, also appear in various Sethian Gnostic texts. Some Christian saints , especially martyrs , are trios who share a feast day or other remembrance. (See Category:Saints trios .) Whether they are subject to actual veneration and prayed to for supernatural aid, or simply honored, varies by Christian denomination . Whereas Nicene Christians professes "one God in three divine persons" ( God

5628-464: The underworld , her mother's search for her, and her eventual but temporary restoration to the world above are the subject of works in Roman and later art and literature. In particular, her seizure by the god of the Underworld – usually described as the Rape of Proserpina, or of Persephone – has offered dramatic subject matter for Renaissance and later sculptors and painters. In early Roman religion, Libera

5712-640: The underworld), as in Plato 's Phaedrus , concerning the myth of Dionysus and the Titans) The Matres or Matronae are usually represented as a group of three but sometimes with as many as 27 (3 × 3 × 3) inscriptions. They were associated with motherhood and fertility. Inscriptions to these deities have been found in Gaul, Spain, Italy, the Rhineland and Britain, as their worship was carried by Roman soldiery dating from

5796-409: The underworld, spouse to Rome's king of the underworld, Dis pater , and daughter to Ceres. The cult's functions, framework of myths and roles involved the agricultural cycle, seasonal death and rebirth, dutiful daughterhood and motherly care. They included secret initiations and nocturnal torchlit processions, and cult objects concealed from non-initiates. Proserpina's forcible abduction by the god of

5880-550: The volcano at Mount Etna in his chariot, seizes Proserpina at the Pergusa Lake near Enna , and takes her down into the underworld. The poem ends at this point. Proserpina's mother, Ceres, seeks her daughter across the world, but in vain. The sun sinks and darkness falls as Ceres walks the earth, stopping the growth of crops and creating a desert with each step. Jupiter sends Mercury to order Dis to free Proserpina; but Proserpina has melted Dis' hard heart, and eats "several" of

5964-472: The world above. In Latin literature, several versions are known, all similar in most respects to the myths of Greek Persephone's abduction by the King of the underworld, named variously in Latin sources as Dis or Pluto , and in Greek sources as Hades or Pluto. "Hades" can mean both the hidden Underworld and its king ('the hidden one'), who in early Greek versions of the myth is a dark, unsympathetic figure; Persephone

6048-557: The world of the living, the crops grow, flowers blossom, and in summer all growing crops flourish, to be harvested in Autumn. During the time that Proserpina resides with Pluto, the world goes through winter, when the earth gives no crops. The earth can only be fertile when she is above. The most extensive myth of Proserpina in Latin is Claudian 's (4th century AD). It is closely connected with that of Orpheus and Eurydice . In Virgil's Georgics, Orpheus' beloved wife, Eurydice, died from

6132-521: The writing on the rear wall in the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck turned the painting into the record of a marriage contract. Holbein 's The Ambassadors has been the subject of books for a general market with new theories as to its iconography, and the best-sellers of Dan Brown include theories, disowned by most art historians, on the iconography of works by Leonardo da Vinci . The method of iconology , which had developed following

6216-462: Was Cesare Ripa 's emblem book Iconologia . Gian Pietro Bellori , a 17th-century biographer of artists of his own time, describes and analyses, not always correctly, many works. Lessing 's study (1796) of the classical figure Amor with an inverted torch was an early attempt to use a study of a type of image to explain the culture it originated in, rather than the other way round. Iconography as an academic art historical discipline developed in

6300-525: Was almost certainly supervised by Rome's Flamen Cerealis , a male priesthood usually reserved to plebeians. The new cult might have partly subsumed the Aventine temple's older, native cults to Ceres, Liber and Libera, but it also functioned alongside them. Liber played no part in the reformed cult. Ceres, Proserpina/Libera and Liber are known to have received cult in their own right, at their Aventine temple and elsewhere, though details are lacking. The Roman cult of Mother and Maiden named Proserpina as queen of

6384-483: Was based on the women-only Greek Thesmophoria , which was a part public and part mystery cult to Demeter and Persephone as "Mother and Maiden". It arrived in Rome along with its Greek priestesses, who were granted Roman citizenship so that they could pray to the gods "with a foreign and external knowledge, but with a domestic and civil intention". In his commentary on Virgil , Servius writes that Proserpina's heavenly name

6468-470: Was depicted variously as a single womanly form; as three women back-to-back; as a three-headed woman, sometimes with the heads of animals; or as three upper bodies of women springing from a single lower body ("we see three heads and shoulders and six hands, but the lower part of her body is single, and closely resembles that of the Ephesian Artemis".) The Olympian demiurgic triad in platonic philosophy

6552-652: Was developed in the Netherlands as a standard classification for recording collections, with the idea of assembling huge databases that will allow the retrieval of images featuring particular details, subjects or other common factors. For example, the Iconclass code "71H7131" is for the subject of " Bathsheba (alone) with David's letter", whereas "71" is the whole " Old Testament " and "71H" the "story of David ". A number of collections of different types have been classified using Iconclass, notably many types of old master print ,

6636-603: Was in theory reviving the iconography of its Classical Antiquity , but in practice themes like Leda and the Swan developed on largely original lines, and for different purposes. Personal iconographies, where works appear to have significant meanings individual to, and perhaps only accessible by, the artist, go back at least as far as Hieronymous Bosch , but have become increasingly significant with artists like Goya , William Blake , Gauguin , Picasso , Frida Kahlo , and Joseph Beuys . Iconography, often of aspects of popular culture ,

6720-498: Was installed around 205 BC at Ceres' Aventine temple. Ethnically Greek priestesses were recruited to serve Ceres and Proserpina as "Mother and Maiden". This innovation might represent an attempt by Rome's ruling class to please the gods and the plebs; the latter shared strong cultural ties with Italian magna Graeca . The reformed cult was based on the Greek, women-only Thesmophoria , and was promoted as morally desirable for respectable Roman women, both as followers and priestesses. It

6804-552: Was made up of Zeus (considered the Zeus [king of the gods] of the Heavens ), Poseidon (Zeus of the seas ) and Pluto / Hades (Zeus of the underworld ). All were considered to be ultimately a monad ; the same Zeus who gave rise to the Titanic demiurgic triad of Helios (the sun when in the sky), Apollo (the sun seen in the world of humankind), and Dionysus (god of mysteries , or the "sun" of

6888-589: Was regarded as unhealthy, if not heretical, in the Eastern Church, though it still continued at a glacial pace. More than in the West, traditional depictions were often considered to have authentic or miraculous origins , and the job of the artist was to copy them with as little deviation as possible. The Eastern church also never accepted the use of monumental high relief or free-standing sculpture, which it found too reminiscent of paganism. Most modern Eastern Orthodox icons are very close to their predecessors of

6972-438: Was simply one form of the same God, and so Modalism holds that the "Father" suffered no less on the cross than did the "Son", as these are simply two names for one deity appearing in different forms. In addition, Modalism holds that the Holy Spirit is not a separate person from the Father either, but is simply a term that describes God in action. Modalism is considered a heresy in orthodox Christianity. Peter H. Goodrich interprets

7056-411: Was the female equivalent of Liber Pater , protector of plebeian rights, god of wine, male fertility and liberty, equivalent to Greek Bacchus or Dionysus . Libera was originally an Italic goddess, paired with Liber as an "etymological duality" at some time during Rome's Regal or very early Republican eras. She enters Roman history as part of a so-called Triadic cult alongside Ceres and Liber, in

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