.:. art / an icon's archaelogy 

Storia di un gesto. Il mito di Meleagro dall’arte classica a Warburg, a Picasso
May 13 through October 4, 2026

Everybody knows what an icon is: that sort of smiling or angry circle with a yellow background that can be evoked typing :-) or :-( Well, not only. A research field has been developed since the 19th century called iconography. It's a branch of the history of art, and it's much more interesting than mimicking a blink ;-)
.:. The best known developer of iconography might have been Aby Warburg (1866–1929), who left his native Germany, researched in Europe and America, and mapped icons – that is pictures, shapes, subjects, or even gestures – connecting them to meanings.
.:. Salvatore Settis (born 1941) is an Italian art historian and iconographer who has proposed to connect the gesture of arms thrown backward with the feeling of despair. His sources are rooted in history, from ancient Rome to medieval Italy and a 20th-century painter, to be exhibited in an educational exhibition currently on in Milan. Enjoyable and brilliant.

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