SENSORIALITIES AND SYNESTHESIA A PLEA FOR AN EXPANDED ICONOLOGY

Iconology – a method of interpretation systemized at the end of the 1930s by Panofsky – falls into a theoretical field heavily influenced by the legacy of Kant. The interpretation of images primarily consists in elucidating levels of meaning (pre-iconographic, iconographic, and iconologic). This definition opens up iconology to criticism: it has been accused of leaning/resting/relying on an essentially Idea-centric philosophy, to the detriment of the sensible. The 1990s debate around the Iconic Turn radically invalidated iconology for its presumed logocentrism. Once this now well-known criticism is taken into account, we are left with an essential problem: what kind of theoretical methods (that is, concepts, descriptive models, paradigms) can we call upon to build an iconologic analysis that is more solidly rooted in sensible data? How do we analyze an image without neglecting its sensible character – in other words the manner in which an image mobilizes the gaze’s sensible/concrete experience? Though this question seems simple, it often remains – due to its complexity – unanswered. In many ways, phenomenology – in particular in its esthetic deployment – has been able to mitigate the denial of the sensible observed in the Neo-Kantian art philosophy. For this reason, it still constitutes a popular theoretical framework for contemporary image theories (particularly in Germany in the Bildwissenschaft field). But that cannot/should not be the only [possible] frame of reference. The current field of image theory, fiercely opposed to the presumed logocentrism of iconology, calls for a renewed critical version of the method, one that would take into consideration the logic of the sensible and the modes of visual organization. But how to do this?