Apotropaic iconography. Collage by Nigel Firth, 2003.

"This picture has representations of apotropaic iconography from three culturally separate art traditions: ancient Greece (the Gorgon), Hindu art (the Kirttimukha) and north west Canadian coast Indians (Konankada). The contended hypothesis is that in the analysis of the visual form/s of art by traditional formalist methodologies, such as Panofsky, the possible significance of ethological/biological input in art production is not addressed. However, from a comparative analysis of the above iconography, there is evidence that they are formally based upon the universal human biological expression of extreme anger, characterised by enlarged, glaring eyes, open mouth, conspicuous teeth and gnarled nose (depicted at the four corners, connected by DNA), visual characteristics which not only occur throughout these iconographies, but also in the common use of their expressive symbolism in protective contexts, for example, above temple gate and doorways and pediments and on personal items of especial importance, such as Haida Chieftan regalia boxes. Further more, these observations have important ramifications for the relativist post modern analyses of art, such as Derrida and Foucault."--UCL website, loc. cit.

Influenced by ideas in Ellen Dissanayake, Homo aestheticus: where art comes from and why, Seattle 1995

[2003]

1 collage : photoprints on paper in integral frame carved with leaf and berry motifs ; frame 38.1 x 33.1 cm

Nigel Firth, Art, ethology and comparative apotropaic iconography: a challenge to formalism, UCL Graduate School website, http://www.grad.ucl.ac.uk/comp/2003/research/gallery/index.pht?entryID=2, 2003, accessed 14 April 2004

Copyright is held by the Wellcome Trust

Wellcome Collection 47473i