iconography

noun

ico·​nog·​ra·​phy ˌī-kə-ˈnä-grə-fē 

plural iconographies

1

: the traditional or conventional images or symbols associated with a subject and especially a religious or legendary subject

2

: pictorial material relating to or illustrating a subject

3

: the imagery or symbolism of a work of art, an artist, or a body of art

4

: iconology

Did you know?

If you saw a 17th-century painting of a man writing at a desk with a lion at his feet, would you know you were looking at St. Jerome, translator of the Bible, who, according to legend, once pulled a thorn from the paw of a lion, which thereafter became his devoted friend? And if a painting showed a young woman reclining on a bed with a shower of gold descending on her, would you recognize her as Danaë, locked up in a tower to keep her away from the lustful Zeus, who then managed to gain access to her by transforming himself into golden light (or golden coins)? An iconographic approach to art can make museum-going a lot of fun—and amateur iconographers know there are also plenty of symbols lurking in the images that advertisers bombard us with daily.

Examples of iconography in a Sentence

the iconography of the 1960s

Recent Examples on the Web

Italian filmmakers like Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci had a field day with cowboy iconography in the 1960s, churning out a series of violent Westerns that many enthusiasts would say rival or surpass the American Westerns made by the likes of John Ford and Howard Hawks. —Christian Zilko, IndieWire, 22 May 2025

Inside the Church of La Compañía, Baroque altars drip with gold leaf, while the ceilings are carved with indigenous iconography layered beneath Christian motifs. —Natalie Stoclet, Forbes.com, 13 May 2025

In Iran, this technique has been central to protest art, where artists reclaim revolutionary imagery, religious iconography, and even state propaganda to critique contemporary injustices. —Rebecca Ruth Gould, JSTOR Daily, 9 Apr. 2025

The image depicts Trump — who is not Catholic — seated on an gilded chair, dressed in white papal vestments and headdress, with one finger raised, in a gesture that evokes Christ and other religious figures’ hand symbols in Christian iconography. —Natalie Oganesyan, Deadline, 4 May 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Late Latin īconographia "making of images," borrowed from Greek eikonographía "sketch, description" (Late Greek, "making of images"), from eikono- icono- + -graphia -graphy

First Known Use

1678, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Rhymes for iconography

• bibliography
• choreography
• chromatography
• crystallography
• hagiography
• lexicography
• metallography
• myelography
• oceanography
• physiography
• plethysmography
• polarography