Assignment 1

The Wounded Angel (Finnish: Haavoittunut enkeli) (1903) by Hugo Simberg

Here we see a central icon of a young girl with wings. She holds snowdrops, symbolic of healing and rebirth. She is visibly wounded; her eyes are bandaged and her wing is bloody. The blood is an index of some kind of trauma. She becomes symbolic of lost innocence or hope forgotten. The two boys are also icons, as well as the entire landscape. The fact that they are on a path is symbolic, as is the act of the boys carrying the girl.

The Wounded Deer (1946) by Frida Khalo

This is an icon of a deer with the head of a human female. The arrows piercing her are an index of the emotional and physical pain the artist experienced. The deer is a symbol, as well as the desolate forest surrounding the deer. The trees, branches, ocean, and clouds are all also icons.

Venus Verticordia (1868) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

This icon of a bare-breasted woman is an index of the Roman goddess of love, Venus. The roses are symbolic of romantic passion while the other flowers symbolize chastity, as they serve to obscure the body. These flowers, the spear in her right hand, the apple in her left, and the butterflies around her head and hand are all icons. The golden circle around her head is a symbol of divinity. The apple in her hand resembles a heart with the butterfly above it resembling a flame; this becomes an index to the ‘sacred heart’ of Jesus, which contextualizes the spear as an index of the ‘holy spear’ particularly as it seems to be almost piercing her chest. Thus, the indexes of the ‘sacred heart’ and ‘holy spear’, together with the iconic golden halo, culminate in Venus symbolizing Jesus Christ.

Beer of the Meuse (1897) by Alphonse Mucha

In this advertisement we see text at the top, which is symbolic for the product being marketed. There is also the icon of a woman holding an overflowing beer mug with ornaments in her hair. Below that is another smaller icon of a reclining woman with plants and below that the icon of a city, all of which the symbols below indicate to represent Paris.

Ophelia (1852) by John Everett Millais

Here we see an icon of a woman in a dress. She floats in a river, surrounded by grass, branches, leaves, and flowers; all of these things are icons. The act of floating in the river fully clothed with hands upturned and mouth wide open with eyes barely open is an index for death by drowning, which when taken into context with the painting’s title reveals the subject to be that of Shakespeare’s Ophelia and her tragic death. The flowers she appeared to have been holding until death are symbols; they were the last objects to tie Ophelia to this world and as such may symbolize hope.