25. Die Allegorie

As a literary technique, allegory has a long tradition reaching back to Antiquity. Its definition as extended metaphor by Quintilian is just one aspect of a larger phenomenon that appears in different media. The application of allegorical images can be observed on Roman sarcophagi as well as on medieval walls and countless Renaissance paintings. But what determines an allegory in the visual world? Almost all theoretical approaches to allegory have texts in view. Since allegory as a mode of seeing images has been discussed in different ways, it is not clear to what extent allegory was a criterion for the creation of images. Contemporaries of Giotto and of Ambrogio Lorenzetti used different terms to describe paintings which are today defined as allegorical. It is not until the 17 th century that allegory seems to be a category for texts as well as for images. During the 18 th century, allegory suffered from the first signs of fatigue and surfeit, but from a global perspective, the enhancement of visual allegory can be observed in different contexts.