Un po’ più a sinistra, un po’ più a destra. Spazio e immagine nell’iconica di Max Imdahl

In his lifelong effort to overcome the limits of Panofsky\u2019s iconological method, Max Imdahl tried to sketch out an \uabiconic understanding\ubb which is pre-reflexive, performed below the level of conceptual and verbal explication. Under the auspices of Konrad Fiedler\u2019s theoretical position, Imdahl opposed the Panofskian \uabrecognizing view\ubb with a more formalistic \uabseeing view\ubb, in order to gain access to a third form of vision which he called \uabknowing view\ubb. After outlining Imdahl\u2019s critic of the reduced and unilateral significance of \uabform\ubb and \uabformal composition\ubb in Panofsky\u2019s approach, I will clarify how far Imdahl has gone in the analysis of what should be properly defined as an authentic logic of images. Then, focusing on a paradigmatic case study, I will show the importance of the syntax of an image (i.e. the positioning of its elements on the left or on the right, underneath or above, in the back or in the front) for its semantic meaning