Symbols and symbolism.

I have been thinking about this on and off for the last few days following the feedback on assignment 5. I have gone back to reading Mary Acton's book Learning to look at paintings again. I came across s painting Young Woman in Blue Reading a letter, you can look at it here. There would seem to be a lot of symbolism used in his work. However today the symbols used do not stand for the same things. For instance in Dutch genre painting a woman reading a letter symbolizes love. The map in the painting may refer to a distant love. Also in another painting by Vermeer titled love letter, which you can view here, the woman is painted playing a lute. A lute again symbolizes love.

So there are a couple of things that come to mind about this. For one thing the symbols have to mean something to the artist in order for them to be included. To the subject also. They must have significance to the audience too in order for them to be read.

In photography there are lots of examples like Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" for one. This can be interpreted as a modern version of the Madonna for instance or a symbol of the great depression. Or for that matter the symbolism in the photo can be interpreted in numerous ways depending on the viewers own background.

When I think of my own work, looking at the last assignment there are two photos of hands as the main focus of the images. I used both of these to represent work. Interestingly my tutor has interpreted the images in different ways. The image of the pair of hands against a blue sky as letting go of the earth and the other image against the earth as down to earth.

Now this is a level of interpretation I had not consciously thought of when I took the two.