Iconography, Christian, is the science of the description, history, and interpretation of the traditional representations of God, the saints, and other sacred subjects in art. Almost from the beginning the Church has employed the arts as potent means of instruction and edification. In the first centuries the walls of the catacombs were decorated with paintings and mosaics (see CATACOMBS), and in all later times churches have lent their walls, ceilings, and windows, as well their altars, furniture, and liturgical vessels and books, to be adorned with scenes from the Old and the
ICONOSTASIS
NewTestament, from the lives and legendsof the saints, and even from old mythologies, modified, of course, and harmonized with Christian teaching. (For the details of Christian iconography see the articles, Diptvchs; Ivories; Merat-work; Mosaics; PAINTING; RELIQUARIES; SCULPTURE; WINDOWS; WOOD-CARVING.)
The object of iconography is to give the history of thesé various representations, to note their prevalence or absence at some particular time or in some particular place, to compare those of different lands and different periods, to explain the personal or historical, and to interpret the symbolical. Studied thus, they have an important historical and dogmatic interest, as
Iconosrasis IN THE Russian CHAPEL aT PANCALDI they attest the unity of ecclesiastical tradition and the faith of the age in which they were produced.
Special articles dealing with subjects of Christian iconography, besides those already mentioned, are ANCHOR; Dove; EUCHARIST, EARLY SYMBOLS oF; FISH, SYMBOLISM OF; LAMB; NIMBUS. See also ECCLESIASTICAL ART.
Motanus, De historia imaginum (1570); Derzn., Die christliche Traité d@iconographie chrétienne (Paris, 1890); Dipron, Iconographie chrétienne (Paris, 1843)—Eng. tr. in Boun’s Library; Hevmsporrer, ChristlicheKunstsymbolik und Ikonographie (Frankfort, 1839); Aur, Die Heiligenbilder oder die bildene Kunst und die theol. Wissenschaft in ihrem gegenseitigen Verhaltnisse (Berlin, 1845); Iamesun, Sacred and Legendary Art (London, 1848); Husrensern, Emblems of Saints (London, 1860); Twininc, Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art (London, 1860).