Iconographic Analysis of Thorneycroft's Martyrdom of the Great One
This paper applies Erwin Panofsky's framework of pre-iconographic and iconographic analysis to Diana Thorneycroft's photographic work The Martyrdom of the Great One. Beginning with foundational definitions of iconography, the paper examines how Thorneycroft deploys traditional Christian martyrdom motifs — crucifixion posture, predatory animals, natural crucifix imagery — to construct an allegory about contemporary Canadian identity. By substituting hockey hero Wayne Gretzky for a Christian saint, and comparing Thorneycroft's image to works by Il Sodoma, Jusepe de Ribera, and Rubens, the paper argues that Thorneycroft uses Old World iconographic conventions to critique a post-Christian, sports-obsessed modern world that worships ephemeral cultural heroes rather than eternal religious ideals.
- Introduction: Panofsky's framework applied to Thorneycroft's work
- Pre-Iconographic Description: Analyzing art through form, line, and shape
- Iconographic Interpretation: Reading meaning, symbols, and subject matter
- Symbols and Motifs in The Martyrdom of the Great One: Gretzky, lions, geese, and crucifixion imagery
- Comparative Martyrdom Iconography: Il Sodoma, Ribera, and Rubens compared to Thorneycroft
- Allegory, Modernity, and Canadian Identity: Post-Christian critique of sports culture and materialism
- Conclusion: Gretzky as modern martyr in post-Christian Canada
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What makes this paper effective
- It grounds its analysis in a clearly articulated theoretical framework — Panofsky's distinction between pre-iconographic and iconographic description — before applying it to the specific artwork, giving the argument a structured methodological foundation.
- Comparisons with historical martyrdom paintings (Il Sodoma, Ribera, Rubens) are used purposefully to highlight what is absent in Thorneycroft's work — the angel, the heavenly reception — making the contrast analytically meaningful rather than decorative.
- The paper sustains a consistent interpretive thesis: that Thorneycroft uses Old World iconographic conventions ironically to expose the superficiality of modern Canadian cultural values.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative iconographic analysis — reading a contemporary artwork against a canon of historical images to determine how deliberate departures from tradition generate new meaning. This technique, derived from Panofsky's methodology, shows how art-historical context is not merely background but an active interpretive tool.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with theoretical groundwork (Panofsky's framework), then moves through pre-iconographic and iconographic definitions, before applying both to Thorneycroft's image in detail. A comparative section examines three historical martyrdom works to illuminate Thorneycroft's divergences. The argument culminates in a broader cultural critique linking iconographic choices to commentary on post-Christian modernity and Canadian national identity.
Introduction
Understanding iconography demands that a few prerequisites be achieved first on the part of the viewer. What is required of the viewer to understand what the artist is attempting to communicate? As Panofsky explains, one must know what gestures mean — just as one must know what it means when one passes a gentleman on the street and the gentleman lifts his hat as a sign of cordiality and respect.1 If one has no understanding of this gesture, the meaning of the act is lost. Just so, to engage in iconographic analysis one must understand the mechanisms of meaning used by artists. Particularly, one must be able to contextualize based on one's sense of the history, trends, style, and culture of the artist and his time. To extend Panofsky's analogy, a gentleman raising his hat to another on the street makes sense if one is in the Western world in the early part of the twentieth century — but not if one is in the East, or in any era but the modern one. Thus, with iconography, one cannot apply modern philosophical or cultural perspectives to the art and expect it to make sense; rather, one must view it from the perspective of the time and place in which it was created. One must understand the artistic gestures as they would have been understood in that time.
Before analyzing The Martyrdom of the Great One, it is necessary to understand its forms, and that means looking at both pre-iconographic and iconographic methods. Once these are understood, one can see that Diana Thorneycroft uses iconographic motifs and narrative to express allegorical meanings about Canadian national identity and culture — specifically, that in Canada it is not Christ who is the Great One, but rather Wayne Gretzky, hockey hero. The weight of this meaning cannot be fully comprehended unless one understands the contextual history of iconography and how Thorneycroft ironically uses it to comment on her own modern world.
Pre-Iconographic Description
Describing a work of art in terms of line, form, color, shapes as symbols of natural environments, the relationship between objects as representative of events, and recognizing the pose or gesture of a subject as indicative of the character of the work — all of this is to engage in what Panofsky calls a pre-iconographic description.2 In other words, to look at a work and understand it in terms of line, shape, shadow, form, and movement is to analyze it in pre-iconographic terms.
Bibliography
Argan, Giulio Carlo, and Rebecca West. "Ideology and Iconology." Critical Inquiry 2, no. 2 (1975): 297–305.
Howard, Seymour. "Iconology, Intention, Imagos, and Myths of Meaning." Source: Notes in the History of Art 15, no. 3 (1996): 1–13.
Il Sodoma. The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. c. 1525.
Panofsky, Erwin. "Iconography and Iconology: An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art." Mechanisms of Meaning, 220–235.
de Ribera, Jusepe. The Martyrdom of St. Philip. c. 1639.
Rubens, Peter Paul. The Martyrdom of St. Lucy.
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