ABSTRACT
Iconology, then, in Mitchell’s interpretation, is the study, not just of images, but also of the representation in thought and word of the image: of its relations to its cognatesimagery, imagination, figure-and to its Other-text, discourse, word. As Mitchell makes clear, the “idea of image” (remembering that for generations of philosophers, following Aristotle, an idea was itself a mental image) is far from being “clear and distinct.” Rather, it is “essentially contested;” it has been, throughout recorded history, a focus and a site of political, social, religious, and intellectual conflict, of a struggle between iconophilia (idolatry) and icono phobia (iconoclasm). Iconology, then, is about the relationship between image and text, and about the different discourses through which this relationship has been thought and contested.
