Henri van de Waal’s (1910-1972) unfinished Beeldleer: Exploring new potentials of an iconological classification for the history of the arts

Henri van de Waal (1910-1972), well-known for his development of Iconclass, also worked on a classification system of the arts that has remained unknown to many, entitled ‘Beeldleer’ (Iconology).This article explores the new potentials of Beeldleer, despite its unfinished and occasionally outdated character, to complement historical debates on iconology, and for future application in digital art history. Firstly, it will be demonstrated, using unpublished archival documents of the development of Beeldleer, why it is a necessary addition to Iconclass to fully understand Van de Waals approaches of art history in general and his views on iconography and iconology in particular. Although Iconclass certainly has classes that are relevant beyond a history of art based purely on semantic meaning using foremost figurative examples, Beeldleer has additional value. A comparison between these classification systems revealed that the publication of Beeldleer, even in the unfinished state it has remained in, would allow for much completer descriptions of non-figurative aspects of the arts, also in non-Western contexts. Secondly, Van de Waal’s contribution to iconology has merely been read through the lens of Iconclass and foremost in comparison with the views of Aby Warburg and Erwin Panofsky. Although Van de Waal admired these art historians, archival sources make clear that he put more emphasis on the role of observation to come to a theory of form. He regarded such a theory a precondition for iconology as a theory of meaning for understanding the function of the image in society. Van de Waal’s Beeldleer is not only relevant for the historiography of iconology in the Low Countries but can also contribute to analyses of international debates in the history of art and media studies (in particular around ‘Bildwissenschaft’). Moreover, after update of some classes, Beeldleer allows for classifying the outcomes of current analyses of the making of artworks and of global art history. Thirdly, the article demonstrates that Beeldleer can be crucial in providing more art historical context in modeling and (pre-) classifying the outcomes of computer vision experiments. In particular, the many classes to capture formal aspects make Beeldleer very useful for such experiments in digital art history. The inclusion of many categories that refer to non-visual arts allows for linking to other classifications. The publication of Beeldleer on the Semantic Web could be the realization of Van de Waal’s ‘globus iconographicus’, a tool designed to map uncharted areas of iconography and iconology.