Pneumatology is an essay on the representation of the most present yet invisible instance of life, namely wind, breath and air. On the one hand, the book maps out anthropological, art historical and philosophical conceptions of these three dimensions that are concentrated in the notion of pneuma. On the other hand, the book is an experiment in iconology because it asks one fundamental question: how do these invisible motifs challenge the traditional conception of the image as something seen and read?

Pneumatology attempts to answer this question by addressing the structural relations that have determined the representation of these motifs across different cultures. What does the pneuma - denoting both breath, wind and air - tell us about the human psyche and the structure of images? To articulate cross-historical and cross- cultural connections between representations belonging to different media, the diachronic art historical overview is particularly useful. In order to cover all of the important modes of representing the pneuma, a wide range of art historical and anthropological sources is analysed: the Chinese landscape, the German myth of the wild hunt, the architecture of the wind, its cinematic representation in the films of Victor Sjoestroem and Joris Ivens, the lyrics dimension of breath in Paul Celan's poetry and the 18th century representation of the Wind Trade (Windnegotie).

The final part of the book shows how modern and contemporary arts have radically altered the traditionally optical conception of the image. Relying on Alois Riegl's methodology, the author detects a shift from the optical to the spatially haptic and further to a conceptual mode of representation. This shift passes through the experiments of Etienne-Jules Marey to the futurism of Ivo Pannaggi, the pop art of Ed Ruscha, the arte povera strategies of Giuseppe Penone, the choreographic and visual collaboration between Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Ann Veronica Janssens, the pure conceptuality of Terry Arkinson and Michael Baldwin, the presentism of Daniel Buren and Bruce Nauman and ends with the social engagement and suggestive approach of Amy Balkin. Reading visual structures across various artworks, the essay treats wind, air and breath as in a-motifs, intensities that have changed the canonical understanding of art and its history.