Artworks, iconology, cultural history: a semantic approach for interdisciplinary research

Iconology is a branch of art history focusing on studying artworks as symptoms of contemporary socio-cultural phenomena. Although the approach provides a deep art understanding, little computable data are available. The project aims at leveraging semantic web technologies to foster a quantitative approach to the branch of studies, with a focus on the relation of the artworks to their context of creation. To this end, we will provide an ontological modelling of art contextual features by extending ICON, an ontology on artistic interpretations based on Panofsky’s theory, according to which a dataset of iconological, authoritative interpretations focusing on Early Modern art will be described. The data will be further enriched with contextual information, i.e., social and cultural aspects, to foster an interdisciplinary study of the art pieces.