Behind the Image: Codes and Suggestions Between Eastern and Western Representation

On the basis of some ‘classical’ examples made out of Eastern and Western iconography -particularly Far Eastern Asia and North Western Europe- this paper aims to discuss some relationships between pictorial codes (what is in the image) and cultural codes (what is behind the image). Iconology has largely confirmed these connections, and as Erwin Panofsky[1] proved -what is interesting for our purpose- Geometry plays a strong “symbolic” role in this field. Furthermore, as recently Arthur Edwards[2] tried to demonstrate, also Psychology of Aesthetics seems to confirm the existence of strong recurrences between genetics, cognition, collective unconscious, visual and spatial archetypes in the various geographical contexts. Of course we have to remember that the image -including geometrical image- contains unavoidable semantic ambiguities. But, on the other hand, we also could be encouraged by a famous Albert Einstein’s sentence in which he affirmed that “many creative people insist that in their most inspired moments they think not in words but in mental images”. So, considering first the traditional use of axonometric and perspective patterns in Eastern and Western art, respectively, until the XVI Century, we shall try to recognize some basic affinities between those visual codes and their cultural backgrounds. Then, we shall try to observe some interesting consequences due to the later reciprocal influences between these codes and cultures. Last, we shall try to look at what (and if) of those peculiarities still seem to remain behind the present globalized and computerized image.