Tissue of Texts: Experience of the ‘Hermeneutical Iconology’ (Case Studies of Raphael’s ‘School of Athens’ and Giovanni Bellini’s ‘Sacra Conversazione’)
Each painting of the great masters of the Renaissance is of tremendous interest not only in itself (as a work of genius). Each such picture is also a sum of knowledge of the great humanists of that epoch. The symbolism of these paintings refers us to the wealth of ancient and medieval literature. So, iconographic interpretation of plots and symbols of these pictures become a kind of reading interweaving literary plots, artistic and philosophical texts, to which appealed work-givers of paintings, artists and their consultants. My article is devoted to the work methodology of fine art expert-iconologist. Using iconological and textological methods, on the example of Raphael’s ‘School of Athens’ and Giovanni Bellini’s ‘Sacra Conversazione’, I show the role of philosophical and literary sources that were used to creating plots for classical works of art. These sources form the so-called ‘tissue’ (or web) of texts. I show one and the same picturesque figure is within the scope of various literary and philosophical texts. At the same time, ‘hidden characters’ and the storylines of various works of art could be interconnected, i.e. they can ascend either to one and the same information stream, or to information flows that are close in meaning. The simplest element of the ‘tissue’ (web) of texts is an elementary chain ‘text - picture’. In the case of ‘School of Athens’ these elements ascend to antique plots, as well as to the Latin translation of Arabic texts. Analysis of such translations allowed me to identify a figure of Arab scholar in the midst of Pythagoras as Al-Farabi. The same analysis, as well as a study of Sufi texts allowed me to identify Arab figure in Bellini’s picture as Al-Ghazali. Giovanni Bellini’s ‘Sacra Conversazione’, along with Sufi and ancient reminiscences, allows us to enjoy the atmosphere of fantastic stories of knight novels that suddenly infused with delicate and dramatic personal problems of alleged work-giver of this picture. Based on S. Undset’s literary transposition of the Arthurian Сycle, I significantly complement and extend my previous iconological study of this Bellini’s picture. As a main conclusion in the present paper, I propose the wording of the longest string ‘text - a picture’ for Bellini’s work of art (“Text of courtly romance - hidden characters of the picture - enigma of monster - the moral sense of chivalrous story - Cassandra Fedeli’s conversation with Agostino Barbarigo - Doge’s response - the fate of heroine of Bellini’s ‘Sacra Conversazione’ ”).