Story-Telling: Typologies of Iconic Narratives

The paper addresses the pioneering theories in iconic narratology put forward by Franz Wickhoff and Carl Robert in the late 19th century, and further develped by Kurt Weitzmann in the Seventies of the 20th century. Crucial in iconic narratives are the different ways in which a succession in time is translated into a spatial relationship proper to static images. The paper analyzes the tripartition of such ways proposed by the three authors as regards ancient and modern visual arts, and verifies their applicability to more recent media, such as photography and comics. Open question concerning iconic narratology are raised and discussed.