This thesis examines the possibility of expanding the toolset for art historical studies of digital art, doing so by studying if older influential art theories can be used in image analysis of digital artworks. More specifically, the study centers around the application of Heinrich Wölfflin’s objective classifying principles as well as Erwin Panofsky’s iconology and iconography on the digital art form pixel art. The aim of the thesis is to research the level of applicability of these well-used image analysis methods on the art style, arguing for the legitimacy of pixel art as an art form as well as contributing to the expanding knowledge about digital art within the Swedish art history field. The results of the study showed that both Wölfflin’s and Panofsky’s image analysis methods are applicable on pixel art artworks, but in different ways with different prerequisites. The objective classifying principles of Wölfflin as well as the pre-iconographical stage of Panofsky’s method center around “surface level” aspects of a work of art such as lines, shading or image composition. These are aspects that in many ways differ greatly in execution between traditional painted art and pixel art, so for these methods to work there needs to be some translation to terms and aspects more applicable to pixel art. Panofsky’s iconography and iconology are on the other hand interested in “deeper” as well as contextual aspects of a work of art such as symbols or references. These aspects of pixel art artworks function in the same way as most other art, traditional or otherwise, and can therefore be directly applied without “translation”.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-477348 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Holm, Anna |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Konstvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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