Iconography of the Non-Iconic

This article examines the role of non-iconic elements in the Roman visual arts, highlighting their contribution for the purposes of identifying, situating, and characterizing individual figures and whole scenes. Non-iconic or non-figural elements such as bases, frames, or supports, as well as features that relate to the material identity of an artwork (e.g., the type of metal, stone, and pigments), do not refer to things or facts about the subject or outside the artwork itself. Nonetheless, these elements play an essential role in establishing the meaning and context of an image. As recent scholarship has demonstrated, they participate in a complex semantics of visual codes and stereotypes designed to assist viewers in making sense of an image at both immediate and more sophisticated levels.