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Master Impressions from the UAMA Collections: Allegory
Jan van Vianen
Defined as a means of expressing abstract ideas through a combination of
symbols and personifications in an extended metaphor, allegory was
developed by the philosophers and writers of Classical antiquity. The
word derives from the Greek term allegoria -- "to speak of
something under the guise of something else." In fine art, the objects,
persons, and actions depicted refer to meanings (whether moral, social,
religious, or political) beyond the literal, figurative representation.
Although rooted in Greco-Roman antiquity, allegory became a powerful
mode of religious expression during the Middle Ages. Pope Adrian I
(772-95 AD) promoted the use of allegory in order "to show the invisible
through the visible," to express complicated spiritual concepts through
the comprehensible material world, and artists developed a complex
iconography to represent Christian notions of vice, virtue, salvation,
death, and resurrection. During the Northern European Renaissance,
artists such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder continued to draw from medieval
allegorical conventions for his famed series the Seven Deadly
Sins
and
the Seven Virtues. (Pieter van der Heyden's engraving
Superbia
(Pride), after Pieter Bruegel's design, is on exhibit.)
Secular and political allegories during the medieval period often
involved figurations of Justice, Injustice, Peace, Fortune, time, and
the seasons, but Renaissance and Baroque art revitalized such allegories
with a renewed interest in Classical conventions and myth. Frequently,
artists combined stories and figures from antiquity with the Christian
allegorical tradition, as in Matthaus Greuter's engraving after Wendel
Dietterlin the Elder's Power of Venus: Allegory of Lust and
Purity. In addition, mythological motifs were used in
self-aggrandizing allegorical personifications of political figures, as
in the case of Jan van Vianen's Cornelis Tromp (Allegorical
Portrait as Neptune).
By the late eighteenth century, the use of allegory waned as it was
subjected to both aesthetic and philosophical critique. Even so,
illustrations like William Blake's Europe Supported by Africa
and America made use of allegorical personification to represent
dense political relationships in simplified (and perhaps ironically
romanticized) visual terms.
Master Impressions from the UAMA Collections:
This series of small, rotating presentations showcases the exceptional
breadth and depth of the UAMA Old Master print collection. These
selections offer focused consideration of a particularly significant
artist or theme, and elucidate some of the most influential developments
in the Western printmaking tradition.
See the related exhibitions
Visit our Exhibition History page for information on past exhibitions at UAMA. UAMA: (520) 621-7567 
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