Iconclass

Iconclass is a specialized library classification designed for classifying the subjects and content of images in art (their iconography). It was originally conceived by the Dutch art historian Henri van de Waal in the 1970s, and was further developed by a group of scholars after his death.

It is one of the largest classification systems for cultural content and probably the largest for visual arts content. Initially designed for historical imagery, it is now also used to create subject access to texts and to classify a wide range of images, including modern photography. At the moment it contains over 28,000 unique concepts (classification types) and has an entry vocabulary of 14,000 keywords. Like the Dewey Decimal Classification and Universal Decimal Classification systems, it has 10 main "divisions" or points of entry:

• 0 Abstract, Non-representational Art
• 1 Religion and Magic
• 2 Nature
• 3 Human being, Man in general
• 4 Society, Civilization, Culture
• 5 Abstract Ideas and Concepts
• 6 History
• 7 Bible
• 8 Literature
• 9 Classical Mythology and Ancient History

Each division has 9 or 10 subdivisions, and so on. It can be consulted with the help of the freely available Iconclass 2100 browser. Iconclass was developed in the Netherlands as a standard classification for recording collections, with the idea of assembling huge databases that will allow the retrieval of images featuring particular details, subjects or other common factors. It was developed in the 1970s and was loosely based on the Dewey Decimal System because it was meant to be used in art library card catalogs.

The content of Iconclass is currently maintained by the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (Netherlands Institute for Art History). The online Iconclass browser is developed by the Henri van de Waal Foundation.