New Artistic-Iconological Interpretations in Ecourbarchitecture

In this paper, the author focuses on the ecourbarchitectonic physical structures created after year 2000, whose artistic-esthetic value has an iconological character. An entirely new approach in formation of the facade and roof planes as well as of the forms of structures whose appearance resemble sculptural creations has been analyzed. The buildings from all over the world, with different functions contents, indicate a tendency of a different understanding of interpretation of physical structures and correlation with natural and artifact environment. Water surfaces and vegetative material contribute to an effective, cultural, majestic impression of engineering-technological philosophy of city building. The examples in the paper suggest the obvious need of radical changing of the way of thinking in the application of the design strategy in conceptualization of urban agglomerations, and essentially important, conceptually inspired metabolic of relationships among the spatial structures. The world entered new non-globalization trends of creation of the city memory, of the new iconically, symbolically strong, non-cliché, non-standard forms which define the contemporary cultural-artistic and historical identity of macro-ambient entities. This is a good and encouraging sign.

The Aesthetic Relevance of Iconicity in the Visual Arts

Traditional attempts to define the concept of"art"has frequently meant finding their core characteristics or necessary and jointly sufficient conditions.Especially mimetic and formalist theories have had numerous proponents,arguing for the aesthetic relevance of iconicity or of formal aspects,respectively.In this paper,some basic tenets and problems of these approaches,most notably their essentialist biases,will be discussed.I shall put forward a moderate defense of the aesthetic relevance of mimetic or iconic features in the visual arts.Hereby,also studies from experimental aesthetics will be considered.

Depositional Controls on the Ichnology of Ordovician Wave-dominated Marine Facies：New Evidence from the Shirgesht Formation,Central Iran

The Lower Ordovician Shirgesht Formation in central Iran is composed of siliciclastic and carbonate rocks deposited in diverse coastal and marine shelfal environments（tidal flat,lagoon,shoreface,offshore-shelf and carbonate ramp）.Five facies associations contain diverse ichnofossil assemblages that show distinct proximal to distal trends formed in a wide range of physical-chemical conditions.The ethological groups of trace fossils in the Shirgesht Formation reflect a gradient of depositional stress conditions across a wave-influenced shoreline and shelf.Deposits of waveinfluenced environments make up a significant component of the geological record of shallow marine settings,and the ability to determine paleoenvironments in detail in such successions is critical for reconstruction of depositional histories and sequence-stratigraphic interpretation.The Cruziana ichnofacies of the study shows highly diverse suites that record the establishment of a benthic community under stable conditions and a long-term colonization window.The Skolithos ichnofacies recognized is a low diversity opportunistic ichnocommunity suite that resulted from colonization after tempestite deposition in a stressed environment.The strata record an onshore to offshore replacement of the Cruziana ichnofacies（with abundant feeding traces of deposit-feeders） by the Skolithos ichnofacies（dominated by suspension-feeders and predators）.A transitional zone between the two ichnofacies coincides with the offshore-transition/distal lower-surface deposits.The distribution of ichnofacies,the diversity and range of ethological characteristics reflected by the ichnogenera,and the wide range of wave-dominated coastal facies demonstrate the potential to use individual trace fossils and ichnofacies for significantly refined palaeoenvironmental analysis of wavedominated coastal settings,particularly in Ordovician successions.

Dracula as a Lovesick Monster, Iconology of the PFM＇s Rock Opera

Playbills, covers, and logo of an opera often reflect the meanings of the drama. This paper focuses on above mentioned issues with reference to Dracula, the rock opera of Italian band PFM （Premiata Forneria Marconi）, explaining how every visual aspects （also considering scenography and costumes） are closely linked to libretto and music to show the consistency among the different facets of the opera production. In this procedure, graphic artists and designers confirm their knowledge, but apart from this awareness, there are some symptoms of an tmconscious creativity as much coherent. As a result, this study aims to show how the management of the biggest colossal in the history of rock opera tries--constantly torn between art and advertising--to attract a potential audience by means of the iconography both of the composers and of the most famous vampire in the world.

The ＂Pictorial Turn＂ as Crisis and the Necessity of a Critique of Visual Culture

The ＂Pictorial＂ or ＂Iconic Turn＂ is a central issue in the contemporary theory of images and visual cultural studies. Should the theories concerning the ＂Iconic Turn＂ and formulated in the last 20 years by scholars such as Gottfried Boehm, William Mitchell, Hans Belting be taken as critical theories of crisis？ Is the currently experienced ＂turn towards images＂ （and their progressive rehabilitation after a long standing philosophical and theological rejection） a sign and symptom of some crisis of people＇s relation with images, language and, generally speaking, with the representation forms of reality？ The main hypothesis of this essay envisages two sets of problems： first, the analysis of the relation between the possible idea of turning point and the concept of crisis; secondly, the thorough investigation of the relation connecting the iconic turn to the project of ＂critical iconology＂ or ＂critique of visual culture,＂ as outlined by Hans Belting and William Mitchell. From the interpretation of the ＂Iconic Turn＂ as situation of crisis and aesthetic, anthropological, and epistemological transformation follows the need for the sciences of image to provide a ＂critical iconology＂ in order to be able to theoretically reformulate the ideological and political presuppositions of some dominant contemporary forms of visual representation.

The evolution of Liang Sicheng’s construction of Chinese architectural traditions in his drawings(1920se1930s)

This article investigates one of the earliest attempts to systematically construct a building tradition and incorporate it into modern Chinese architectural design.These efforts were put forth by Liang Sicheng(1901e1972),one of the most distinguished Chinese architects and architectural historians,in the 1920s and 1930s in China,informed by the strong collective intention to honour the Chinese past.This article provides a historical and critical reflection on this collective intention that is still shared nowadays by architects and architectural theorists.This article examines in depth the evolution of the different ways Liang used the building past and constructed the Chinese architectural traditions in different crucial stages of his architectural career in the 1920s and 1930s.It uses architectural drawing as both the research subject and the research method.Three of Liang’s representative drawings from these crucial professional stages are juxtaposed and investigated to reveal this evolution using the iconography and iconology method.

Evanescence:Time in Modern Plastic Art

The Article follows the trail of Max Weber's comprehensive sociology and uses the hermeneutic and iconological analysis methods applied to significant contemporary plastic art works(painting and sculpture)which are representative of modern and late modern art.Starting from these theoretical and methodological bases,it pursues three specific objectives:(a)to analyze the construction of Time in plastic art,(b)to verify how this theme has evolved in artistic practices from the first modernity to the second and(c)to verify the way in which the complementary visual language the conceptual of contemporary sociological theory.In this regard,our paper provides evidence that the selected works prioritize a kind of temporality determined by the logic of capitalist industrial modernity.It likewise becomes obvious that time—focused on an accelerated and instantaneous omnipresent—lacks both an origin and a telos\it has neither a past nor a future and,in parallel,a gap has opened between the time of natural life and the artificial one,as well as between space and time,which is only transiently bridged at the imaginary level of art.Finally,the experience of time has been emptied,in such a way that the latter has lost some of its solidity and让s sense of permanence,while the contingent,the fleeting and the ephemeral now occupy in its place.

‘All Solid Things Vanish Into Thin Air.’The Space in Modern andLate Modern Plastic Art

The article follows Max Weber's Comprehensive Sociology and uses the hermeneutic and iconological analysis sociological methods applied to plastic works(painting and sculpture),significant and representative of modern and late modern art.Starting from these theoretical and methodological bases,it pursues three specific objectives:to analyze the construction of space in plastic art,to verify how this theme has evolved in artistic practices from the first modernity to the second and to verify the way in which the complementary visual language the conceptual of contemporary sociological theory.In this regard,the analysis and interpretation of the eleven selected works reveals three important consequences of the modern influence on space,gradually emptied of meaning and replaced by non-places:its conversion into merchandise,its loss of solidity and stability and the confusion that occurs in it between reality and its representation.Consequently,the implicit content converges with the essential postulates of the sociologists who have approached the subject of space,although it goes further because the foray into the iconographic hermeneutics of these works puts an image to the conceptual theoretical discourses of the sociologists,inaway that visual language complements and enriches,with more emotional and sensitive nuances Therefore our discipline begins to overcome a traditional deficit,in that it moves from the essential rationality that structures its origin and turns towards a greater coupling of the emotional and sensitive social plane.