1/28/2004   slide 19
Charles Peirce’s Sign Classifications
•Icon: signifier looks like signified (photos, many diagrams); NOT the same meaning
as “icon” in computer graphics
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•Index: some inherent visual relationship between signifier and signified
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•Symbol: conventionalized but visually arbitrary signifier-signified relationship
•Many (if not most) a mixture
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Charles Sanders Peirce, American philosopher, pronounced “purse”
Not new concepts—Hume had similar divisions, and some feel now that these divisions not so perfect after all,  but useful in discussing images and talking about types of signs. P58 Iconography-+  [Mitchell 1987]

The Magen David (shield of David, or as it is more commonly known, the Star of David) is the symbol most commonly associated with Judaism today, but it is actually a relatively new Jewish symbol. It is supposed to represent the shape of King David's shield (or perhaps the emblem on it), but there is really no support for that claim in any early rabbinic literature. In fact, the symbol is so rare in early Jewish literature and artwork that art dealers suspect forgery if they find the symbol in early works.
And more on http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/star.html


 W. J. T. Mitchell claims (in Iconology) that the existence of “iconographic signs” (things look like what they represent and therefore have easily understood meanings) contradicts the whole semiology assumption that there are no natural images and that all sign meaning is based in language

SOURCES
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Footprint image, detail from http://www.cothrun.com/gallery/Misc/footprints