allegory:
n. 1) An image in which a second meaning, which may be abstract in quality or idea, is to be read beneath and concurrent with the surface narrative or image. A symbolic narrative. [<L< GR allegoria, derivative of allegorein, meaning "...to speak as to imply something other, or say differently") *pg.39
apotropaic:
(ap'ah trah pay'ik) adj. Something that is intended to ward off evil. [< GR apoiropai meaning "object that averts evil"] *pg.71
archetype:
n. 1) The original pattern or model after which a thing is made. 2) In Jungian psychology: An unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., inherited from the ancestors of the race, and universally present in individual psyches, also known as the "collective unconscious." < GR archetypon, meaning "a model, pattern"] *pg.78
Definitions
capriccio (pl. capricci):
n. A work of art that combines real and imaginary, or mythological, elements. [< IT capriccio, meaning "caprice"] (Eschenfelder/Tiepolo *pg.137)
fetish:
n. 1) A fetish is an object that is regarded with awe and is believed to be "the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical power." Such objects may be deliberately created to evoke this power, or may have come to embody power by virtue of age or association with magical places and events.
2) Any object or idea that elicits unquestioning reverence, respect, or devotion. For example: ritualistic use of bird feathers as fetishes in the American Indian and African cultures.
3) Psychol. any object, or part of the body, although not of a sexual nature, that causes an erotic response or fixation. For example, a foot or shoe fetish. [fateish < P feitico, meaning "charm, sorcery" < L facticius] *pg.526
icon:
n. An icon may be a picture, an image or other representation that stands for its object by resemblance or analogy, and may serve as a connection between the material and the spiritual worlds. For example: statues or paintings of saints displayed in Catholic churches. [GR eikon, meaning "image or likeness"] *pg.706
metaphor:
n. Perhaps it would be easier to denote those concepts for which the nude might not serve as a metaphor. Depictions of the nude human body have been used as an analogy for life, death, vulnerability, truth, morality, victory, the ideal, fertility, religion, virtue, vice, innocence, temptation, knowledge, and more.
A metaphor is also a figure of speech in which two unlike objects are compared by identification or by substitution of one for the other. The title of the painting by Gustave Courbet, The Painter's Studio: A Real Allegory Summing Up Seven Years of My Artistic Life, indicates that the work is a metaphor, as well as an allegory.
symbol:
n. Something used, used for, or regarded as, representing something else: a material object often representing something immaterial. A word, phrase, or image having a complex of associated meanings. [< GR symbolon, meaning "sign" and bolos, meaning "a throw"] *pg.1440