Discover

'Erwin Panofsky' (30 March 1892 - 14 March 1968) was a German art historian and essayist often credited with the founding of the academic study of iconography. His most well-known work is ''Studies in Iconology : Humanist Themes in the Art of the Renaissance'' (1939, reissued 1972).

Contents

Biography

Three Strata of Subject Matter or Meaning

Miscellany

Works

References

Footnotes

External links

Biography

Erwin Panofsky was born in Hanover, Germany. He studied at the universities of Berlin, Munich, and Freiburg, receiving his Ph.D. in 1914 from the University of Freiburg. His academic career in art history took him to the universities of Berlin, Munich, and finally Hamburg, where he taught from 1920 to 1933. It is during this period when his first major writings on art history begin to appear.
Panofsky first came the United States in 1931 to teach at New York University. Though initially allowed to spend alternate terms in Hamburg and New York, after the Nazis came to power in Germany he remained permanently in the United States. By 1934 he was teaching concurrently at New York University and Princeton University. In 1935 he was invited to join the faculty of the newly formed Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Panofsky was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy and a number of other national academies. In 1962 he received the Haskins Medal of The Medieval Academy of America.
Panofsky became particularly well-known for his studies of symbols and iconography within works of art. First in a 1934 article, then in his ''Early Netherlandish Painting'', Panofsky is the first to interpret Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait (London, National Gallery) as a depiction of a wedding ceremony. Panofsky identifies a plethora of hidden symbols that all point to the sacrament of marriage. In recent years, this conclusion has been challenged. And yet, Panofsky's work with what he called "hidden" or "disguised" symbolism are still very much influential in the study and understanding of Northern Renaissance Art.

Three Strata of Subject Matter or Meaning

In his 1939 work ''Studies in Iconology'', Panofsky details his idea of three levels of art-historical understanding Panofsky, Erwin. ''Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance.'' New York: Harper & Row, 1972. pp. 5-9.:

★ Primary or Natural Subject Matter: The most basic level of understanding, this strata consists of perception of the work’s pure form. Take, for example, a painting of The Last Supper. If we stopped at this first strata, such a picture could only be perceived as a painting of 13 men seated at a table. This first level is the most basic understanding of a work, devoid of any added cultural knowledge.

★ Secondary or Conventional subject matter: This strata goes a step further and brings to the equation cultural and iconographic knowledge. For example, a western viewer would understand that the painting of 13 men around a table would represent The Last Supper. Similarly, seeing a representation of a haloed man with a lion could be interpreted as a depiction of St. Jerome.

★ Intrinsic Meaning or Content: This level takes into account personal, technical, and cultural history into the understanding of a work. It looks at art not as an isolated incident, but as the product of a historical environment. Working in this strata, the art historian can ask questions like “why did the artist choose to represent The Last Supper in this way?” or “Why was St. Jerome such an important saint to the patron of this work?” Essentially, this last strata is a synthesis; it's the art historian asking "what does it all mean?"
For Panofsky, it was important to consider all three strata as one examines renaissance art. Irving Lavin says, "it was this insistence on, and search for, meaning-- especially in places where no one suspected there was any-- that led Panofsky to understand art, as no previous historian had, as an intellectual endeavor on a par with the traditional liberal arts.Lavin, Irving. "Panofsky's History of Art" in ''Meaning in the Visual Arts: Views from the Outside.'' Princeton: Institute for Advanced Study, 1995. p. 6.

Miscellany

Panofsky was known to be friends with Wolfgang Pauli, one of the main contributors to quantum physics and atomic theory.

Works

★ ''Perspective as Symbolic Form'' (1927)

★ ''Studies in Iconology'' (1939)

★ ''The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer'' (1943)

★ ''Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism'' (1951)

★ ''Early Netherlandish Painting'' (1953)

★ ''Meaning in the Visual Arts'' (1955)

★ '' Pandora's Box: the Changing Aspects of a Mythical Symbol'' (1956) (with Dora Panofsky)

★ ''Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art'' (1962)

★ ''Tomb Sculpture'' (1964)

★ ''Problems in Titian, mostly iconographic'' (1969)

References

★ Holly, Michael Ann, ''Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History'', Ithaca, Cornell University Press, (1985)

★ Ferretti, Sylvia,'' Cassirer, Panofsky, Warburg: Symbol, Art, and History,'' New Haven, Yale University Press, (1989)

★ Lavin, Irving, editor, ''Meaning in the Visual Arts: View from the Outside. A Centennial Commemoration of Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968)'', Princeton, Institute of Advanced Study, (1995)

★ Panofsky, Erwin, & Lavin, Irving (Ed.), ''Three essays on style'', Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, (1995)

Footnotes

External links

★ Biography