vienna

pretation. The second step is the iconographic analysis where the
picture is interpreted through the knowledge about the themes
and images. The last step is termed iconological interpretation,
an analytical step for which synthetic intuition and personal
psychology are the tools. Mitchell shares Panovsky’s main interest
in investigating how the motifs from classical antiquity can
be interpreted:
“Turning now from the problems of iconography and iconology
in general to the problems of Renaissance iconography and
iconology in particular, we shall naturally be most interested in
that phenomenon from which the very name of the Renaissance
is derived: the birth of classical antiquity.” 228
But the Dionysian motif is not the only concern of this
discussion, which is why we have employed Panovsky’s model
differently. After the pre-iconographic description, visual
interpretation has become much more open to themes found
in the literature other than antique iconography, such as ethnography,
philosophy, sociology, material culture studies or design
theory. This experimental approach left open whether both
steps of interpretation or only one can be used. The texts were
linked to the images by what can be called a similitude key, 229
which is how many narratives are connected to their visual
representation. Hörisch’s example of the unicorn, on the other
hand, is related to the son of the monotheistic god because it
only has one horn, and alone the fact that the horse has “one
horn” links it with the concept of “one god”. 230 The narrative and
the image are thus connected by likeness, resemblance and
similitude. 231 Precisely this likeness of image and “scientific”
text (instead of mythological text) is the criterion for the
following discussions on each selected working image from
the dramatisation of the seasonal sale. In order to guarantee a
better reading, the scientific texts were selected according to
the place of the authors’ origin whenever possible, and thus
related to the respective city. 232 This structure was not chosen
because the aim was to develop categories of images, but to try
“visual keys” as often as possible in order to find likenesses. The
228 ibid., p 51.
229 See Hörisch (2005:88).
230 Ibid., p 88-89.
231 See also Mitchell (1987:10).
232 No scientific reason exists for this decision. Readability was the only reason for it.
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