Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Pictorial illustration of a subject.
  • noun The collected representations illustrating a subject.
  • noun A set of specified or traditional symbolic forms associated with the subject or theme of a stylized work of art.
  • noun A treatise or book dealing with iconography.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun That branch of knowledge which relates to the representation of persons or objects by means of images or statues, busts, paintings, drawings, engravings on gems or metals, and the like.
  • noun The art of producing likenesses, portraits, or graphic representations; the art of illustration.
  • noun Pictorial representation in general; an illustrative figure or collection of figures.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The art or representation by pictures or images; the description or study of portraiture or representation, as of persons.
  • noun The study of representative art in general.
  • noun the study of the representations in art of the Deity, the persons of the Trinity, angels, saints, virtues, vices, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A set of specified or traditional symbolic forms associated with the subject or theme of a stylized genre of art

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the images and symbolic representations that are traditionally associated with a person or a subject

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin īconographia, description, verbal sketch, from Medieval Greek eikonographiā : eikono-, icono- + -graphiā, -graphy.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

icon +‎ -ography

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Examples

  • The word iconography comes from the Greek word εἰκονογραφία; in modern usage iconography is a de - scription and/or interpretation of the content of works of art and therefore its history belongs to the history of human ideas.

    ICONOGRAPHY JAN BIA��OSTOCKI 1968

  • I ask her questions about her iconography, and she acts as though she has no idea what the word iconography even means.

    Chuck Klosterman on Pop Chuck Klosterman 2009

  • I ask her questions about her iconography, and she acts as though she has no idea what the word iconography even means.

    Chuck Klosterman on Pop Chuck Klosterman 2009

  • I ask her questions about her iconography, and she acts as though she has no idea what the word iconography even means.

    Chuck Klosterman on Pop Chuck Klosterman 2009

  • I ask her questions about her iconography, and she acts as though she has no idea what the word iconography even means.

    Bending Spoons with Britney Spears Chuck Klosterman 2007

  • I ask her questions about her iconography, and she acts as though she has no idea what the word iconography even means.

    Bending Spoons with Britney Spears Chuck Klosterman 2007

  • I ask her questions about her iconography, and she acts as though she has no idea what the word iconography even means.

    Bending Spoons with Britney Spears Chuck Klosterman 2007

  • And what surprised me in the Tennessee case is that that whole iconography from the early republic seems to have been lost in this sense of quid quo pro - if you give me money, I will protect you.

    A Lesson In Firefighting History 2010

  • The aim of the art of iconography is to give witness to the presence of God in his visible image ... the composition and the perspective, the colors and the light, the decorative elements: everything takes on a spiritual meaning ...

    Tomas Spidlik: Thoughts on Iconography and the Church Building 2009

  • Some of our recent features related to the work and writing of David Clayton, which is inclusive of the iconographic tradition, as well as a recent mention of Russian iconography by Fr. Raymond Blake put me to mind of my own long-standing interest in iconography, particularly from the Byzantine tradition.

    Icons: Windows into Heaven and Theology in Paint 2009

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