Zwroty obrazowe, ikoniczne i wizualne w humanistyce i studiach kulturowych: Od teorii obrazu, nauki o obrazie i koncepcji „krytycznej ikonologii” Erwina Panofsky’ego po filozoficzne próby odpowiedzi na pytanie „Czym jest obraz?”
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This essay is an attempt to outline the issues of the visual turn which is a mirror reflection of the linguistic turn. In humanistic reflection, the “visual turn” functioning under two names of the pictorial turn by W.J.T. Mitchell and its German equivalent, the iconic turn (Die ikonische Wende) by Gottfried Boehm, can be defined as a kind of theoretical-methodological shift from the linguistic to the pictorial and visual paradigms, which falls within the area of Visual Culture Studies or Visual Studies. In the 1980s and the 1990s, the “pictorial turn” and the “iconic turn” led to the development of three scientific disciplines: the semiotics of the image, the American Picture Theory, and its German equivalent of Image Science (Bildwissenschaft). These scientific disciplines arose around the same time. American considerations on the pictorial turn were largely conditioned by opposition to the domination of language, mastering the icon by logos, and boiled down to the interpretation of the image and its philosophical connotations. In the case of Boehm’s iconic turn, inspiration from an inter- and a transdisciplinary image research takes the initiative, unlike American visual culture studies, from philosophical art historians and aesthetes who (beginning with Aby Warburg and Erwin Panofsky) were interested in various forms of visuality. In the meaning proposed by Mitchell, the pictorial turn goes far beyond the models of “textuality” and “discursiveness” towards Erwin Panofsky’s critical iconology. In turn, Boehm in his concept of the iconic turn, similarly like Mitchell, and refers to the concept of the linguistic turn, looking for the logic of an image different from the logic of language but first of all he asks the question “What is an image?” and points to an extremely wide range of its philosophical connotations.
Author: Chmielecki, Konrad
Language: English
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7142793150
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