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Correggio's Madonna And Child With Infant John The Baptist

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An iconographic approach to interpreting Correggio’s Madonna and Child with Infant John the Baptist asks us to look for hidden meanings or symbols within the work of art. A pre-iconographic description of Correggio’s Madonna and Child with Infant John the Baptist would be the identification of a two babies and a woman. An iconographic analysis of Correggio’s Madonna and Child with Infant John the Baptist would show that the Madonna and child are common motifs represented in Christian paintings, as well is the story of John the Baptist. It was known that Saints were usually depicted with personal symbols in order to clearly identify the figure in question. The Madonna and child is a repeated motif through Christian paintings and Madonna (Virgin Mary) is commonly depicted draped in luxurious fabrics in the colours green, red and blue. In Christian iconography, Christ as a child was commonly depicted blessing Infant John the Baptist with two fingers raised on his left hand as infant John the Baptist as offers Christ a cross which is often understood as a sign of future betrayal and death. (DOUBLE CHECK) To interpret Correggio’s Madonna and Child with Infant John the Baptist through Panofsky’s iconographical approach, the last two stages of would require research of additional sources to understand the specific …show more content…

Firstly, a criticism of the Panofsky’s iconographical approach is that this method cannot be applied to all types of works, however, luckily for Correggio’s Madonna and Child with Infant John the Baptist, this can be done but it needs to be recognised that it can’t be applied to all works of art. Through an iconographic interpretation, Panofsky tends to assume cultures are homogenous and overlooks the social tensions and struggles within a society at the period of time and doesn’t translate it into his interpretations of works of

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