Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968): Thinker, Historian, Human Being

Jan Bia#ostocki

Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 4, No. 2. (1970), pp. 68-89.

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 ERWIN PANOFSKY ( 1892-1968):

THINKER, HISTORIAN, HUMAN BEING

JAN BIAEOSTOCKI

1. The master of art history

With the death of Erwin Panofsky on March 14, 1968 one of the most important chap-
ters in the history of art history as a discipline of research reached its close. At the
time of h s death Panofsky was an undoubted master of h s profession, perhaps even
more so than were Wolfflin, Friedlander, Focillon or Berenson when they passed away.
Each new study by Panofsky, however large or narrow its scope, used to be read with
interest by art historians working in various fields. Each advanced important new state-
ments and insights; his writing was always witty and always young.
Panofsky was born at the end of the last century at a time when the power of the
German state was at its height. He arrived at maturity when German humanistic scho-
larship had just reached the last stage of its world dominance. He died as an American
scholar; a master of English scholarly prose; a direct or indirect teacher of hundreds of
art historians throughout the world; the inventor of a method whose triumph went
beyond the borderlines of hls own discipline; a duca e maestro of art-historical re-
search.
The triumph of Panofsky came late in his life, but it was complete. In his years in
the Hamburg chair of the History of Art, first as Dozerzt (1921-26) and then as
Ordinarius (1926-33), the young scholar stood in the shadow of the foremost represen-
tatives of German art history: Schlosser, Wolfflin, Goldschmidt, Friedlander, Jantzen
were still alive and at the height of their powers. But Panofsky won the high esteem of
art historians with h s very first studies. For his doctor's thesis - a perfect answer to a
question formulated by Wolffin - he received the Hermann Grimm prize.' Moreover
he soon became famous as a teacher: the young students, true to the German tradition
of wandering from university to university, began to flow to Hamburg. In the short
time of less than twelve years at the university of that Hanseatic town Panofsky
trained a large group of prominent scholars, among them such names as Heydenreich
and Heckscher, Katzenellenbogen and Janson, Buchtal and Walter ~ o r n . ~
But h s triumph came only when Panofsky began, from 1931 on, to teach in
America and when, from 1933 on, he began to write and to publish in English. His in-

* The present article is an abridged version of the introduction t o a selection of Panofsky's

writings soon t o appear in Polish (Pahstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warszawa). I have left o u t the
discussion of criticism of Panofsky's views, which may form a subject for a separate article. I quote
Panofsky's obituaries without their respective titles. I am very much indebted to Mr. Gary Schwartz,
whose corrections of the wording have transformed m y own translation into idiomatic English.

1. Hans Kauffmann, obituary in Kunstchronik 1968, 261.

2. Hugo Buchthal, obituary in A Commemorative Gathering for Erwin Panofsky at the Institute o f
Fine Arts New York University in Association with the Institute for Advanced Study, New York
1968, 12.
 Photo by Lotte Jacobi

comparable erudition and his admirable talent for logical, although sometimes intricate
thinking, his inborn wit and incredible feeling for languages, soon allowed him to
create an individual writing style in an English marked by AngloSaxon clarity of ex-
pression. His highly specialized academic knowledge could now be fruitfully used in
works written for the general educated public. The American custom of organizing lee
tures later to be published gave Panofsky's activity a convenient framework, facilitating
the publication of the books which brought him fame and glory in the English-
speaking world. Studies in Zconology (1939), The Life and Art of Albrecht Diirer
(1943), Early Netherlandish Painting (1953), Tomb Sculpture (1964): all these books
 show a happy mixture of German precision and thoroughness with the simplicity and
wit of the English essay style.
Slowly Panofsky's fame began to reach beyond the narrow circle of art historians,
and also beyond the Enghsh-speaking world, until it even penetrated his land of origin,
which had expelled him after his dismissal from the university in 1933. His books
began to be translated, even in Germany and France, which for a long time had not
been very interested in what was going on in the field of the humanities outside her
own borders. Panofsky was famous: he received memberships in learned societies and
academies, and honorary degrees from several universities. The first of these, which was
granted to him at the nadir of his fortunes, in 1935, was the honorary doctorate from
Utrecht University.
It was only one year before l s death that Panofsky decided to end an absence of
33 years and visit the country which was once his own, whch had expelled h m and
w l c h was as if forgotten. He came for a short stay, and even though he accepted the
high national order of West Germany, Pour le merite, he delivered h s lecture in
English. In these ways he stressed his being a foreigner, he maintained distance and
mistrust. Although he admitted with pride to belonging to the great tradition of Ger-
man scholarship, he stressed his claim to being 'free from what may be suspected as
retroactive German patriotism'.3
Panofsky was not only the creator of a system and a method (in spite of the fact that
he denied it, with his acquired Anglo-Saxon dislike for systems), he was also the nucleus
of an international group of scholars, of somethmg hke a 'clan' of art hstorians bound up
with him either by the direct h k s of the teacher-pupil relation or by a - perhaps still
more valuable - Wahlvenuandschaft, brought into being by the animating contact with
Panofsky's thought-provoking and dluminating ideas. A stay at the Institute for Advanced
Study in Princeton, where Panofsky from 1935 on represented art history in the School
of Historical Studies, sharing the membership of the Institute with scholars like Einstein,
Oppenheimer and Maritain, was a dream of art hstorians, not only because it gave them
the opportunity for quiet work in that wonderful place Princeton was and still is, but also
because of close contact with Panofsky's mind and intelligence. Everybody who has
learned the completeness of the Princeton libraries, the charm of its University, its
avenues and gardens, understands why Panofsky has called his compulsory emigration
from Germany and his settling down in Princeton 'an expulsion into Paradise'.
To many people - even to many art lstorians - Panofsky is known first of all, or
exclusively, as a deviser of a method called iconology. Although he probably did not
dislike being thought of in that way, late in h s life he used to quote a statement by an
Arab statesman, who said that 'discussion of methods spoils application.'4 He also
avoided the term 'iconology', taking care not to use it in his late studies. Its too great
popularity and a too great crowd of imitators, with whom he often disagreed, provoked
l s skepticism. In this there was quite a lot of his acquired English understatement. since
Panofsky was, it seems, one of the most systematically minded of art historians, gifted

3. Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts, Garden City, N.Y. 1955, 323.
4. William S.Heckscher, 'The Genesis of Iconology', in: Stil und Liberlieferung in der Kunst des
Abendlandes. Akten des XXI. Internationalen Kongresses fur Kunstgeschichte, Bonn 1964, Berlin
1967, 111, 239-262, quot. 262.
with a powerful talent for precise thinking. His scholarly activity in the historical study of
art and of the literature of art was accompanied - especially in the first half of his
creative life - by constant reflection on theory. In this way he built up a conceptual and
methodological framework that sustained and justified his practical work. Hence the
importance of the system of art analysis devised by Panofsky, a system which is no less
significant an achievement than the results of h s historical research and interpretation.
Anyone seeking, at the beginning of the twentieth century, to get a clear view of the
fundamental problems of art study had to consider, and to form his own attitude to-
wards, such concepts as 'style', 'forms of beholding', 'artistic volition', 'symbol' and
'symbolic form', concepts which had been formulated and discussed by the generation of
predecessors and teachers of Panofsky. The young scholar dealt with them in a masterly
way. With an admirable striving for system and with a certain stubbornness he returned
over a long period of h s life to those problems, in order to make his concepts more
perfect and to eliminate ambiguity. And he always looked on the questions from the
most general point of view. He succeeded in creating a system whch is perhaps the most
coherent art-hstorical method put together in our times. Problems of style, artistic
volition and general concepts of art history were analyzed in a Kantian spirit; the problem
of the relation of art and ideas in a neo-Kantian, Cassirerian spirit; and the method of art
study, which was later to be celebrated as 'iconology', was conceived in a Warburgian
spirit.

2. Aprioristic concepts of art history

In a letter of April 1, 1962 to Herbert von Einem, Panofsky wrote the following about
himself:' 'Was ich mir vomahrn, war nicht sowohl etwas "Originelles" zu leisten, als
vielmehr unter Vermeidung der Einseitigkeit so vie1 von der grossen Tradition des
19. Jahrhunderts (Voge, Riegl, Goldschrnidt, Warburg, sogar ein bisschen Wolfflin und
Friedlander) in das 20. Jahrhundert heriiberzuretten, als es in meinen Kraften stand. Aber
es muss auch Eklektiker geben in der Wissenschaft wie in der Kunst.'
Thls 'topos of modesty', very frequent and typical in Panofsky's letters, was - so it
seems not a 'topos of false modesty'. He described himself as 'vain but not ~ o n c e i t e d ' . ~
-

He was well aware of his own position and of his importance, and if he complained it was
only when he felt that his efficiency in work was declining in his old age. Aware of the
role he played in the art history of our time, he nonetheless wanted to be linked with
older tradition. Indeed, if any art historian in our century has profited from the tradition
of scholarship, it was Panofsky. A tireless reader who united contemplation with activity,
he never worked in a state of immobile concentration, but in an incessant confrontation
with books, dictionaries, articles and photographs, constantly verifying his immense
erudition in order to purge it of error and doubt.
With a youthful enthusiasm, at the age of twenty three he began a polemic with the
most prominent leader of his discipline - Heinrich Wolfflin. In 1912 Wolfflin delivered a
lecture before the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, presenting the ideas of his
book Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe (Principles of Art History), which appeared only

5. Herbert von Einem, obituary in WallrafRichartz Jahrbuch, X X X , 1969, 7 2 f.

6. E.H. Gombrich, obituary, Burlington Magazine 1968,359.
in 1 9 1 5 . ~He distinguished between two 'roots of style': individual stylistic features of
the artist, which express his specific mind, and the 'form of beholding' which belongs to
each penod of the development of art.
Panofsky took exception to this 'form of beholding' which, Wolffin pretended, was
typical of the period rather than the individual, and in which the source of the diversity
of styles should be sought. Seeing, Panofsky wrote,' is a physiological process of re-
ceiving visual stimuli, and as such it does not change in history. What changes is the pro-
cess of interpretation of what is seen. It is the aesthetic choice which changes. Man makes
choices by virtue of his mental powers. The aesthetic choice is a psychological process in
which a certain attitude of the human mind to the visual world is expressed. Hence, the
'modes of representation' typical for art of various epochs are not 'given', but are a result
of an active interpretation, and as such they are charged with expressive meaning (in spite
of their sometimes being largely conventional, and thus not the products of a real choice).
Panofsky states that seeing alone only furnishes the mind with visual elements; it has
nothing to do with expression and has no influence on style. Style is shaped only by the
interpretation of visual impressions. In this way Panofsky recovered the expressive
meaning of stylistic features, lost in Wolfflin's 'forms of beholding'. For Panofsky stylistic
features are not a reflection of changes in the 'form of beholding' independent of the
human mind, but a reflection of changes in the interpretation of the world as we see it;
this in turn is the result of the spiritual evolution of mankind.
Panofsky also took a critical attitude toward the famous categories of Wolfflin's
Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe shortly after it was published.9 But first he felt the
need to find the solution to another problem which had been puzzling those art historians
who were convinced of the existence of aesthetic pluralism. The main representative of
this idea, which was responsible for the disappearance from art-historical terminology of
the words 'decline', 'fall' and 'decadence', was Alois Riegl. Riegl introduced the concept
of 'artistic volition' (Kunstwollen) into the very center of discussion. In his own writings
the term changed somewhat in meaning, and it became the object of a prolonged debate
in the first quarter of the twentieth century.'
For Riegl 'artistic volition' was a dynamic factor, conscious or unconscious, a drive, a
necessity. Panofsky, however, wanted to make of the concept somethng much more
essential than an individual or social-psychological factor, as several writers interpreted it.
He therefore left psychology aside and created a philosophcal interpretation of Kunst-
wollen. 'Artistic volition', he wrote, 'cannot be anything else than what resides in artistic
phenomena as their essential meaning.' The word Sinn, often used in Panofsky's German
writings, means 'the essence of thlngs' and probably comes - as do so many concepts

7. Heinrich Wolfflin, 'Das Problem des Stils in der bildenden Kunst', Sitzungsberichte des
koniglichen Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, XXXI, 19 12, 572ff.
8. Erwin Panofsky, 'Das Problem des Stils in der bildenden Kunst', Zeitschrift fiir Aesthetik und
allg. Kunstwissenschaft, X , 1915,460467.
9. Heinrich Wolfflin, Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Das Problem der Stilentwicklung in der
neueren Kunst, Munich !915.
10. Hans Sedlmayr, Die Quintessenz der Leh_ren Riegls', in: Alois Riegl, Gesammette Aufsatze,
Augsburg-Vienna 1929, xii-xxxiv; Otto Pacht, Art Historians and Art Critics-VI: Alois Riegl',
Burlington Magazine 1963, 188-193; Ksawery Piwocki, Pierwsza noweczesna teoria sztuki, Pogludy
Aloisa Riegla, Warszawa 1970.
 '
used by Panofsky - from p ant.' What is that Sinn, the essential or intrinsic meaning of
artistic phenomena? It is the tendency one finds expressed in the choice and in the
shaping of formal and figurative elements, and which can be discerned in the uniform
attitude towards the basic artistic problems. And what are artistic problems?
Starting with hls criticism of Riegl and Wolfflin, Panofsky undertook to build up a
system of 'aprioristic concepts of the study of art', as Kant did for philosophy. In his
article of 1920 on the interpretation of 'artistic volition', he merely sketched the pro-
blem, announcing that a history of art aiming at a study of meaning has to proceed from
previously defined concepts applicable to 'any possible artistic problem'. Thls is the
background of the 1924 article by Panofsky (in which he took advantage of studies by
the Hamburg art historian-philosopher Edgar Wind) concerning the relation of art history
to art theory, an article which could be entitled 'Prolegomena to any future art history
which could claim to be a science'.12
The five pairs of concepts devised by Wolfflin are, according to Panofsky, no more
than elaborations of incidental empirical concepts, fit perhaps to describe the individual
differences between Renaissance and Baroque, but not deriving from a transcendental
analysis of the very possibilities of art. In other words, they are merely aposterioristic
interpretations of historical material, and not Grundbegriffe at all. A transcendental
analysis of the possibilities of art was still lacking, and Panofsky now attempted to fill
this lack, in the first of hls tabular systems of concepts, apparently following a Kantian
model.
The most general, inclusive antithesis in art is, according to Panofsky, that between
'fullness' and 'form'. This line of thinlung leads Panofsky to formulate the system of
three layers of opposed values present in every work of visual art:
1. elementary values (optical-tactile, i.e. space as opposed to bodies)
2. figurative values (depth-surface)
3. compositional values (internal links-external links, i.e. internal organical unity as
opposed to external juxtaposition).
In order for a work of art to be created, a balance must be struck within each of these
scales of value. The absolute poles, the limiting values themselves, are outside of art:
purely optical values characterize only amorphous luminous phenomena. Purely tactile
values characterize only pure geometrical shapes deprived of any sensual fullness. A
solution which determines the position of the work of art at some point on any given
scale at the same time determines its position on the other scales. To decide for surface
(as opposed to depth) means t o decide for rest (as opposed to movement), for isolation
(as opposed to connection) and for tactile values (as opposed to optical ones): a typical
example confirming the analysis quoted above may be the Egyptian relief.
The individual work of art is not, as claimed by Wolfflin, defined by one antithetical
category or the other, but is situated at some point on the scale between the limiting
values. For instance the scale 'optical-tactile' takes actual form in such categories as

11. Kirchner's Worterbuch der philosophischen Grundbegn'ffe, 6th ed., ed. Carl Michaelis, Leipzig
1911,910.
12. 'Uber das Verhdtnis der Kunstgeschichte zur Kunsttheori;', Zeitschrift fir Aesrhetik und allg.
Kunstwissenschaft, XVIII, 1925, 120-16 1 ; cf. Edgar Wind, Zur Systematik der kiinstlerischen
Probleme', ibidem 438-486.
'painterly' (near the 'optical' pole), through 'sculptural' (in the middle of the scale) to
'stereometric-crystalline' (closest to the ideal, untrodden pole of the absolute 'tactile'
quality). The borderlines and the values attainable on the scale are conditioned by histori-
cal tendencies: the quahties considered as most painterly on the Renaissance scale moved
closer to the tactile pole in the Baroque, because the whole scale had shifted towards the
optical pole.
The manner in which elements are composed in a work of art reveals a specific creative
principle, i.e. a specific principle of solving problems. In a given work the set of principles
used for solving artistic problems constitutes a unity. And this unity is for Panofsky the
essential meaning of a work or of an artistic period. It corresponds for him to what he
understands by 'artistic volition'.
Theoretical, interpretative study of art reveals that in case A artistic problem X has
been solved; in case B artistic problem Y has been solved; moreover we observe that in
both cases they have been solved in a similar way, which means that A:X=B:Y. The
constant attitude of the artist or of the hstorical period towards fundamental artistic
problems can be established in t h s way, and eventually the meaning, the artistic volition
of the work, the artist or the period. Seen in this light, artistic volition loses all traces of a
voluntaristic or psychological character and becomes 'the essence of style' or 'style in an
intrinsic sense'.
Moreover, since 'artistic volition' is nothng but 'the intrinsic meaning' of artistic
phenomena, or the 'unity of the principles of solving artistic problems', it is quite a useful
concept from the methodological point of view, allowing one to join two methodological
positions usually opposed in the study of art. I mean the method w h c h stresses the
autonomy of artistic phenomena and the method whch stresses their links with the other
elements of the historical process. What is more, t h s joining can now be done not as a
Taine or a Semper did it, i.e. by considering the artistic phenomena as influenced by
technical, economical, geographical and other factors, nor in the manner of Dvoiik's
'expressionistic' relation between art and religion or philosophy, of whch the work of art
is to be considered a function, but in a new way: by defining the common factor in the
intrinsic meanings found in the various fields of culture.
Since the intrinsic meaning of phenomena in the visual arts is nothing else than the
underlying similarity in the means of solving the basic artistic problems, we are able to
compare it with the intrinsic meaning of phenomena not only in the other arts, e.g. music
and literature, but also in the other fields of human culture. Scientific, legal and linguistic
systems are based - as far as they are systems - on some specific principles of solving
problems peculiar to those fields. A generalizing humanistic study is able, then, to
compare the intrinsic meanings of various fields of human activity in any culture limited
in time, space, ideas or social character. Now we understand how it happened that
Panofsky, twenty-four years later, presented an admirable comparative account of the
parallel structure in Gothc architecture and Scholastic thinking.'
In this way the once dynamic concept of Kunshvollen was transformed in the hands of
the ingenious humanist from a tool Riegl could use to describe the artistic features of
different periods, places and individuals, into one enabling Panofsky to compare the

13. Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism [lecture 1948 1, Latrobe, Pa., 195 1 .
similarities of ideological and artistic attitudes manifest in the various aspects of one and
the same culture. From here it was only one step to the concept of 'symbolical form' and
to use it in the methodology of art history. Panofsky's next step was precisely that.

3. Symbolic Forms
Una veritas in variis signis varie resplendet
Nicolas Cusanus

Panofsky was born in Hanover. He went to high school in Berlin, where he was educated
in the famous Joachimsthalsches Gymnasium, which gave him an excellent formation
both in the classics and in mathematics. He began his university studies in the Law
Department of the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, owing his conversion to art history
to h s friend Kurt Badt, who took him t o hear Wilhelm Voge's lecture on Diirer's Feast of
the Rose Garlands. 'Et ceciderunt de oculis eius tamquam squamae', he wrote later.14 He
studied art history with the most prominent mediaevalists of his time. First with Voge at
Freiburg, where he completed his doctorate in 1914 with a prize thesis on Diirer's art
theory; then, feeling the need to develop his erudition and method even further, he
studied for several terms with Adolf Goldschmidt in ~erlin.' Thanks to an otherwise
innocuous fall from a horse at the beginning of his military service, he avoided the hell of
the First World War. His abilities were so highly valued that in 1920 the new Hamburg
University, just being organized, invited him to pass his Habilitation and to become the
head of the art-historical seminar. From 1921 on Panofsky was Dozent and from 1926 on
the full professor of the history of art in Hamburg (Ordinarius), a position he kept until
the spring of 1933, when he was dismissed - after the proclamation of the Nuremberg
Law - and left Germany.
The Hamburg years were a period of intense scholarly as well as pedagogical and
literary activity for Panofsky. At the age of thirty, hls talent at its peak, he found himself
living in one of the most interesting centers of pre-war German scholarship, in the sphere
of influence of two powerful minds, men one generation older than he was - Ernst
Cassirer and Aby Warburg. That he underwent their influence was to be expected; what is
interesting is that he knew how to make use of that influence in an independent way. He
was able to learn from them what he needed, without surrendering to the spell of their
strong personalities. From the beginning he stood on equal footing with them, as it were.
Cassirer and he understood each other at once thanks to their shared Kantian training.
He must have been fascinated by the depth and scope of that thmker's philosophical and
humanistic interests. The concept of symbol at the center of Cassirer's phlosophy, a con-
cept of great concern to every art historian, and Cassirer's special concentration in the
field of Renaissance neo-Platonism and its consequences must also have contributed to
the formation of a strong link between the phlosopher and the art hstorian. Their direct,
close collaboration was realized precisely in the field of neo-Platonic studies. Two lectures
in the Warburg Library in Hamburg were devoted to Plato's aesthetic ideas. Cassirer spoke
about the idea of beauty in Plato's dialogues, Panofsky about the development of the

14. Erwin Panofsky, 'Wilhelm Voge' in: Bildhauer des Mittelalters. Gesammelte Studien von
Wilhelm Voge, Berlin 1958, ix-xxxi, quot. xxiv.
15. Hans Kauffmann, obituary, O.C.261.
Platonic concept of idea from antiquity until Bellori. In the preface to his book Idea (the
development of that lecture), dated March 1924, Panofsky expressed his thanks to
Cassirer for his help and encouragement.
Soon the mind of the art historian felt the influence of Cassirer's fundamental theory,
w h c h was at that time being developed in his magnum opus, the three volumes of The
Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Perhaps the first echo of that theory in the history of art
was the descriptive title Panofsky gave to his famous study of perspective, presented as a
lecture in winter 1924125 and published in 1927. As we all know, that study was called
'Perspektive als "symbolische Form" '.
The concept of symbolic form introduced at that time by Cassirer is now well at home
in the modern philosophcal vocabulary; it has already passed into the history of philoso-
phy. It had great importance for the study of culture. One can say that if Cassirer's ideas
on language - like those of Carnap - heralded and paved the way for the later approach
of the semiologistsl - Cassirer's theory of culture as a symbolic creation of man paved
the way, as it were, for the method of interpreting the phenomena of civilization used by
the recent school of structural research in cultural anthropology.
How can we know the essence of the human world, Cassirer asks, if neither psychologi-
cal introspection, biological observation and experiment nor historical research gives us a
satisfactory answer to the question 'What is man? ' I have endeavoured to discover such
an alternative approach in my Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. The method of this work is
by no means a radical innovation. It is not designed to abrogate but to complement
former views. The philosophy of symbolic forms starts from the presupposition that, if
there is any definition of the nature or 'essence' of man, this definition can only be
understood as a functional one, not a substantial one. [ . . . ] Man's outstanding charac-
teristic, his distinguishng mark, is not h s metaphysical or physical nature but his work.
-

It is this work, it is the system of human activities which defines and determines the circle
of 'humanity'. Language, myth, religion, art, science, history are the constituents, the
various sectors of t h s circle. A 'philosophy of man' would therefore be a philosophy,
which would give us insight into the fundamental structure of each of these human
activities, and w h c h at the same time would enable us to understand them as an organic
whole. Language, art, myth, religion are no isolated, random creations. They are held
together by a common bond. But this bond is not a vinculum substantiale as it was
conceived and described in scholastic thought; it is rather a vinculum functionale. It is the
basic function of speech, of myth, of art, of religion that we must seek far behnd their
innumerable shapes and utterances, and that in the last analysis we must attempt to trace
back to a common origin'.'
Was this not the very phdosophy Panofsky needed in order to develop a concept of the
intrinsic meaning of a work of art, a period, or a field of culture? The philosophy of
symbolic forms, which conceived the link between various fields of human endeavor in a
functional or structural way, appeared to be similar to the system of concepts developed
by Panofsky. This may be due to Panofsky's and Cassirer's common Kantian background.
'All human works arise under particular hstorical and sociological conditions. But we

16. Millca Ivif, Kierunki w lingwistyce, Wroclaw-Warszawa-Krak6w 1966, 1 1 1, 184.

17. Ernst Cassirer, A n Essay on Man. A n Introduction to a Philosophy of Uurnan Culture, New
Haven 1944, reed. Garden City, n.d., 93.
could never understand these special conditions unless we were able to grasp the general
structural principles underlying these works. In our study of language, art, and myth the
problem of meaning takes precedence over the problem of historical development' [ . . .]
'Ths structural view of culture must precede the merely historical view. History itself
would be lost in the boundless mass of disconnected facts if it did not have a general
structural scheme by means of which it can classify, order, and organize these facts." So
wrote Cassirer - how similar to what was written by Panofsky on methodological mat-
ters.
On May 20, 1931 Panofsky spoke before the Kiel section of the Kant Society. The
title of his talk was 'Zunz Problem der Beschreibung und Inhaltsdeutung von Werken der
bildenden Kunst'. He sketched for the first time a system of interpretation of the work of
art centered on problems of content. In that system, clearly derived from Panofsky's
former methodological studies, he formulated the program of an iconographically
oriented history of art whlch conceives works of art as symptoms of general intellectual
htstory. Panofsky discerned in the work of art a threefold 'meaning': 1. external, 'pheno-
menal'; 2. semantic; and 3. documentary, or what he called 'essential'. In the first layer he
included the represented objects and their objective and expressive significance; in the
second their conventional meaning, deriving from cultural tradition; in the third their
'essential' meaning, namely the basic relation of the work of art to the total historical
process. T h s was what he formerly called 'artistic volition'; in this first version of his
scheme he used as a label for that layer the term of Carl Mannheim: 'documentary
meaning'. At each level of interpretation, Panofsky expected the interpreter to be ade-
quately prepared: at the first stage, with general experience of life; at the second, with
literary knowledge; at the third, with a conscious stance vis-a-vis the world. The corrective
to subjectivism in interpretation is provided by objective hstorical knowledge of style in
the first stage, of the history of iconographical types in the second and of the general
history of intellectual culture in the third.
That scheme was modified by Panofsky twice more. Eight years later it received its
classical form, when Panofsky published it in the first part of the Introduction to his
most famous book, Studies in Iconology. In the place of Wesenssinn, with its obvious
debt to Riegl's Kutzstwollerz, a new term, 'intrinsic meaning', appeared, now already in
English; 'intrinsic meaning' was understood as 'content which constitutes the world of
symbolic values'. It was only then, in 1939, that Panofsky made plain that he conceived
the deep meaning of works of art as symptoms of cultural attitudes in the sense of
Cassirer's symbolic forms. Riegl's 'artistic volition', conceived as the 'intrinsic meaning' of
all art. became identified with Cassirer's symbols of culture.
In the version of the system we are talking about, Panofsky introduced one more
vertical division to house the description of the kinds of interpretative functions. In the
first stage is 'pre-iconographc description', in the second 'iconographic analysis in the
narrower sense', in the third 'iconographic interpretation in the deeper sense or iconogra-
phic synthesis'. But that did not remain the final formulation of the system. Only in
1955, when Panofsky reprinted that article in his volumeMeaning in the VisualArts, did
the system achieve its ultimate form. There is, to be sure, only one difference, but it
amounts t o a definitive declaration. The act of interpretation aiming at the discovery of
intrinsic meaning, i.e, the world of symbolical values, was described formerly as 'iconogra-
p h c a l interpretation in a deeper sense'. In the definitive version of the system Panofsky
called that act 'iconological interpretation'. Thus, as he manifested his link with Cassirer
in 1939, in 1955 he stressed finally his link with Warburg and ' i c ~ n o l o g ~ ' . ' ~ ~
Of course, Panofsky's practical work showed this much earlier. It is already manifest in
the title of his Sntdies in Iconology. Iconographical interests and the influence of
Warburg are apparent in several of his publications, beginning with the book on Diirer's
Melencolia I, published in 1923 in collaboration with Fritz Saxl. But in the Introduction
t o Studies in Iconology, the first part of whlch bears the imprint of Cassirerian inspira-
tion, whereas the second reflects the essential preoccupations of Warburg's circle, the two
roots of Panofsky's methodological attitude were manifested in the most outspoken way.
While Cassirer reconfirmed, as it were, Panofsky's ideas on the logical study of culture,
which he had arrived at independently through rational analysis, Warburg opened t o him
the great irrational world of human passion, where the roots of art are to be found, and
made it possible for him to embrace an immense field of human culture by showing him
how to systematically abolish the borderlines between the disciplines. Panofsky was able
t o master with his mind both these mental dimensions and t o make out of them a
homogeneous whole. T o have done that is just one of his claims to greatness as a historian
of cultural life.

4. Iconoiogy
In his obituary of Warburg, written after the latter's death in 1929, Panofsky quoted the
well-known aphorism of Leonardo da Vinci: 'He who is futed to a star does not change
his mind'.' Warburg was doubtless a man of inspiration and genius theia rnarzia. One -

could continue and guess with which celestial body Warburg was linked: Saturn, beyond
any doubt! All the features of the Saturnian psyche, from genius to madness, from
creative intellectual work to the abyss of the most profound melancholy were The
comparison with Nietzsche only one generation older
- is so compelling that one
-

wonders why it was not developed further after Sax1 mentioned it briefly in one of his
early articles." The same incessant tension between rational thought and the energy of
the subconscious, the irrational life of the psyche: the same loss of mental balance cursed
those discoverers of Dionysiac follies and of powerful instincts behlnd the dynamism of
forms. The same union of life and thought for which one pays with madness.
The fact that Panofsky met both Cassirer and Warburg in Hamburg was partly acciden-
tal. Cassirer studied in Marburg, and before coming to Hamburg lived in Berlin. Warburg

18a. BernardTeyskdre ('lconologie, Reflexions sur un concept d'Erwin Panofsky',Reviie Philoso-

phique, CLIV, 1964, 321-340) compares the 1955 version of the system x i t h the 1962 reprint of the
Studies in Iconology drawing the conclusion that Panofsky eliminated the tern1 'iconological inter-
pretation' in the later version. The opposite is true.
19. Erwin Panofsky, 'A.Warburg', Repcrtoriurn fitr K ~ i n s t ~ ~ i s s e i ~ s c iXXX\'. ~ a t f . 1Y30, 1.
20. Fritz Saxl, Lectures, London 1957. 325-357: Gertrud Bing, 'A.hI.\Varburg Joltrt~alo! the .
Warburg and Courtauld I~lstitutes.SXVIII, 1965. 299-313: L.H.Gombnch. 'Aby \Varburg zum
Gedenken', Jahrbuch der H a r n h ~ t r ~ eKr ~ t r ~ s t s n r r ~ ~ t ~ l XI. e t ~ . 15-27: Dieter \\'uttke. 'Aby
i t t ~ ~1966.
Warburg und seine Bibliothck', Arcadia 1. 1966.319-333: Carlo tiinzburg. 'Da A. Warburg a E.H.
Gombrich (Note su un problem* di inetodo)'. Stltdi medirrali. 3 icr.. Vli. 2 . 1966. 1015-1065.
21. See footnote 27.
was a member of an old, rich Hamburg family. The family bank, of world importance,
provided a basis for h s scientific undertakings. On the other hand, the two thinkers
shared strikingly close tendencies as well as points of departure. Warburg's main interest
too was the search for symptoms of thought and life in art; for h m too art was an
indicator of changing attitudes, outlooks, religions, myths, superstitions. Cassirer designed
a philosophy of human culture conceived as a system of symbolic forms. Warburg, fasci-
nated by the real life of hstory expressed through those forms, applied hmself to actual
hstorical problems. Starting with detailed analysis, he strove for a general knowledge of
tradition and of cultural continuity.
Warburg dealt with questions concerning the role of the tradition of the classical world
in European culture and the significance of Dionysiac, pathetic, non-classical antiquity, to
which Nietzsche had shortly before opened the eyes of scholars. This aspect ofantiquity,
transmitted in long-forgotten systems of magic and astrology, is especially interesting
because it conserved in strange, often deformed shape the image of classical gods as the
humanists and artists of the Renaissance had first learned to know them. Warburg dealt
with questions concerning the 'formulae of expressing pathetic passions' found by those
artists in the treasury of classical art, w h c h depicted not only quiet beauty but also pas-
sions bound by form.22 Penetrating deep into the history of the Renaissance, Warburg
solved several detailed problems, e.g. the imporant question of the donors represented on
the shutters of Mernling's Last Judgment ~ l t a r . ~
Warburg's triumph was his performance at'the International Congress of Art History in
Rome in 1912: he presented the 'iconological analysis', as he called it, of the astrological
frescoes by Cossa and h s collaborators in the Palazzo Schfanoia at ~ e r r a r a These .~~
representations, incomprehensible to Warburg's predecessors, were interpreted by him as
a pictorial formulation of an astrological program devised by a Ferrarese humanist in
accordance with Arabic, Ptolemaic and Hindu traditions. The realistically conceived per-
sonifications represent decans of the months. This was Warburg's triumph not only in
respect to the results achieved, but also in respect to the method used.2 His discovery of
the solution to the riddle of the Palazzo Schfanoia frescoes was not an accident. It was
not by chance that he came across the Introductoriunz Magnum of Abumasar, reprinted
by Franz Boll in 1903 as an appendix to his Sphaera. It was a result of deep knowledge
and systematic research. At the end of his paper Warburg added some fundamental state-
ments concerning method: 'venturing to present here a provisional sketch concerning a
particular question, I wanted at the same time to raise my voice in defense of enlarging
the methodological borderlines of our discipline, as concerns material as well as space.
[ . . . ] I hope that with the help of the method used in my attempted explication of the
wall-paintings in the Palazzo Schifanoia at Ferrara, I have shown that an iconological ana-
lysis which is not dissuaded by the rules of the border police can study antiquity, the

22. Fritz Sasl, 'Rinascimento dell'Antichiti. Studien zu den Arbeiten A.Warburgs', Repertorium fur
Kunstwissenschaft, XLII!, 1922, 221-272.
23. Aby Warburg, Flandrische Kunst und florentinische Friihrenaissance', Jahrbuch der
preussischetz Kutzstsarnrnlungen, XXIII, 1902, 247-266.
24. Aby Warburg, 'Italienische Kunst und internationale Astrologic im Palazzo Schifanoja' [lecture
19121, in: Atri del X Congresso Internaziorlale di Storia dell'Arte it1 Roma, L 'Italia e ljlrte Straniera,
Roma 1922, 179-193, reprinted in Gcsarnrnelte Sclrrifien, Leipzig-Bcrlin 1932, 11, 4 5 9 4 8 1 .
25. Heckscher, o.c. passim.
Middle Ages and modern times as interconnected epochs and analyze the works of the
'finest' and the most 'applied' arts as equally valid documents of expression. When the
light of such a method is beamed on one dark spot, it can enlighten great general develop-
ments in their interconnection. I care less to present a smooth solution than to discover a
new problem . . .'26
This new branch of scholarshp a synthesis of the knowledge of culture, implicating
-

in its investigations myth, idea, word and image - was to be realized by means of the
library built up by Warburg, first as his private library, then transformed into an institute,
cared for and organized by Warburg's collaborator, pupil and prophet of his ideas, Fritz
~ a x l . ' That
~ great promotor of Warburg's ideas popularized and brought together the
ingenious flashes of his master's thought. He published summaries of Warburg's ideas.
Warburg himself, affected by mental illness, did not round off h s theories. Saxl carried
Warburg's work on after the latter's death in 1929. In 1933 he saved the library from the
Nazi deluge, transferred it to Great Britain and succeeded in incorporating it into the
academic life of the adopted country. He was its head until his death in 1948. Saxl was
the closest collaborator of Panofsky in his Hamburg years.28
What Warburg and his library meant for the whole world of humanistic scholarshp and
philosophy in Hamburg, we learn from Cassirer in the fine dedication to Warburg of one
of h s now classic works, The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy. 'My
dear and esteemed friend,' Cassirer wrote on June 13, 1 9 2 6 ~- ~'The work I am pre-
senting to you on your sixtieth birthday was to have been a purely personal expression of
my deep friendship and devotion. But I could not have completed the work, had I not
been able to enjoy the constant stimulation and encouragement of that group of scholars
whose intellectual centre is your library. Therefore, I am speaking today not in my name
alone, but in the name of t h s group of scholars, and in the name of all those who have
long honoured you as a leader in the field of intellectual history. For the past three
decades, the Warburg Library has quietly and consistently endeavoured to gather mate-
rials for research in intellectual and cultural hstory. And it has done much more besides.
With a forcefulness that is rare, it has held up before us the principles which must govern
such research. In its organization and in its intellectual structure, the Library embodies
the idea of the methodological unity of all fields and all currents of intellectual history.
Today, the Library is entering a new phase in its development. With the construction of a
new building, it will broaden its field of activity. On thls occasion, we members want to
express publicly how much the Library means to us and how much we owe to it. We
hope, and we are sure, that above and beyond the new tasks which the Library must
fulfil, the old tradition of our common, friendly collaboration will not be forgotten, and
that the intellectual and personal bond that has hitherto held us together will become
ever stronger. May the organon of intellectual-historical studies which you have created
with your Library continue to ask us questions for a long time. And may you continue to

26. Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, 478f.; Heckscher, O.C.246.

27. Fritz Saxl, 'Die Bibliothek Warburg und ihr Ziel', Vortrage der Bibliothek Warburg, 1921-22, 1 ,
1923, 1-10.
28. Gertrud Bing, 'Fritz Saxl, 1890-1948, A Memoir', in: Fritz Saxl, 1890-1948. A Volume o f
Memorial Essays, ed. G.J.Gordon, Edinburgh 1957, 1 4 6 .
29. Ernst Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance, Leipzig-Berlin
1927, Engl. trans.: New York 1964, xiii.
show us new ways to answer them as you have in the past.'
Cassirer spoke these words in the name of a group of scholars to which Panofsky also
belonged. Cassirer's book appeared in 1927. Two years later Warburg was no longer alive;
six years later Hamburg lost Cassirer, Saxl, Panofsky and the excellent library.
For the young Panofsky the circle of the philosopher of symbolic forms and that of
the inventor of iconological analysis were most stimulating milieus. The interest in the
theory of art and in Durer reflected in his first studies, and his knowledge of mediaeval
sculpture and architecture, acquired from Voge and Goldschmidt and formulated in 1924
in his monumental book on German sculpture of the 1lth-13th centuries, was now
supplemented by some vast new fields: the problems of the classical tradition and the
Renaissance, especially of Michelangelo (to whom his Habilitationsschrift was dedi-
cated30) and above all - iconography.
In his precisely worked out scheme of interpretation the analysis of content took the
main place. By iconography Panofsky did not mean the identification of saints, attributes
and symbols as practiced by theologians, art historiats and archaeologists in their daily
work, an integral part of art history since the nineteenth century, when the field became
a scholarly discipline. For Panofsky the study of iconography, as well as art theory, was a
means to restore the lost links between art and thought, between images and ideas.
With these aims in mind Panofsky studied the classical tradition and its impact on
Durer's art;31 together with Saxl he devoted a fundamental study to Durer's
Melencolia I.32 He began a systematic study of religious and humanistic iconography.
Constantly sharpening his tools, he never stopped formulating concepts and general
theoretical points of view. A long study of 1927 entitled Imago Pietatis, devoted to the
history of the iconographical type of the Man of Sorrows and Maria Mediatrix, included
reflections on the concept of iconographic types and on the method of research in that
field.
A further step was the book dedicated to the motif of Hercules at the Crossroads as a
moral allegory, published in 1930. In this study the image was - as implied by the subject
- always closely linked with ideas about life and morals. The scholarly approach included

constant confrontations of the sphere of art with that of philosophy and concepts of life.
In the introduction Panofsky first formulated his ideas on the study of content,
conceiving it as an integral and important element of the procedure of the art historian.
We have already seen that the final formulation of these ideas was expressed in the
form of statements in which Panofsky convincingly connected the system of fundamental
concepts of art hlstory, built up in the early stage of his development, with his new task
of the interpretation of content. The program came to fruition in the articles collected in
Studies in Iconologv and in several later papers, written in America.
Panofsky's interests spread out from already existing nuclei. His studies on Diirer's art
history led to several papers on Diirer's art, culminating in the monumental monograph
on the artist published in 1943. Panofsky's interest in Jan van Eyck did not die after he

30. Hans Kauffmann, obituary, O.C.

31. Panofsky, 'Diirers Stellung zur Antike', Jahrbuch fur Kunstgeschichte, I , 1921-22,43-92.
32. Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl, Durers Melencolia I, Leipzig-Berlin 1923. Enlarged ed.:
R.Klibanskv. E.Panofskv. F.Sax1. Saturn and Melancholv. Studies in the Historv o f Natural
wrote the essay on perspective. It grew, as Panofsky produced a series of articles and
polemics in the thirties, and reached its climax in his iconographcal analyses of the Ghent
altarpiece, the Arnolfini portrait and the Timotheos ;33 its summa has been given us in
Panofsky's biggest book, Early Netherlandish Painting of 1953. His inclination to
philological analysis of texts brought about the publication of the Leonardesque Codex
Huygens in 1940 and the masterly translation of Abbot Suger's writings, published in
1946 with a thorough philological and historical commentary as well as an extraordinarily
lively reconstruction of the personality and ideas of that mediaeval thinker and patron.
Panofsky's main passion, solving iconographc riddles, found expression in numberless
detailed studies and articles, and in some more extensive works such as Pandora's Box,
written with h s wife, a humanistic document to his shared life with Dora panofsky ;34 a
study on the Gallery of Francis I in Fontainebleau (1958), also written in collaboration
with his wife; the study on Correggio's Camera di San Paolo in Parma (1961); and articles
on some pictures by Poussin and some works by ~ i i r e r . ~ ~
Renaissance and Renascences, a series of lectures delivered in Sweden and published in
1960, is devoted to a defense of the authentic meaning of the Renaissance against 'the
revolt of the mediaevalists'; a large book concerning Tomb Sculpture resulted no doubt
from a continuation of panofsky's old interest in t h e tomb of Julius I1 and its genea-

Panofsky's desire to link ideas and forms, art and humanistic thought was expressed in
the masterly parallel of Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism (1948), which could be
described as an exercise in structural analysis; in his study on Galileo and his scientific
views in their relation to art (1954 and 1955); and in h s last article on Erasmus of
Rotterdam and the visual arts (1969). Titian studies, beautifully inaugurated by an article
in Studies in Iconology, became the subject of Panofsky's last book.37
He once wrote that the world of the art historian is composed of many islands. These
islands grow up and multiply, sometimes they connect to form extensive areas, recognized
and subjugated.38 The world of art on whch he ruled extended from antiquity to the
eighteenth century, although he undertook sporadic excursions also into the last two
centuries.39 Although he did not have a negative attitude towards contemporary art, the
movies seemed to h m the most important of the various artistic expressions of our
century. He thought of film as an extremely 'iconographic' art, the heir of the tradition
of symbolism and of the old meanings connected with images. It was not by accident that
he devoted to the movies a study highly appreciated even by specialists.
He was troubled by areas which could not be subjugated by logical, ordering thought.

33. Panofsky, 'Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait', Burlington Magazine, LXIV, 1934, 177ff.; The
Friedsam Annunciation and the Problem of the Ghent Altarpiece', Art Bulletin, XVII, 1935, 433ff.;
'Once More the Friedsam Annunciation and the Prpblem of the Ghent Altarpiece', ArtBulletin, XX,
1938, 429ff.; 'Who is Jan van Eyck's Timotheos? , Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes,
- --, 1949.
X11. - - .- , 80ff.
- - - -.
34. Pandora's Box, New York 1956, reed. 1962 and 1965.
35. Erwin Panofsky, 'Et in Arcadia Ego', Philosophy and Histoiy, Essays Presented to Ernst
Cassirer, Oxford 1936, 223-254; idem, A Mythological Painting by Poussin, Stockholm 1960.
36. Idem, Tomb Sculpture, New York 1964.
37. Idem, Problems in Titian, mostly iconographic, New York 1969.
38. Idem, Meaning in the Visual Arts, Garden City, N.Y., 1955,340.
39. 'The 'Tomb in Arcady" at the "Fin-de-Sikcle" ', Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch X X X , 1968,
287-304 (with Gerda Soergel-Panofsky,his second wife).
When the material of history did not yield to his expectations of intellectual order he
complained jokingly but also accusingly of 'die verdammten Originale'.40 It was of course
easier to put order into photographs and types. He was also troubled by Spain - which he
never visited, by the way - 'where everything is always possible', where there was no
certain point of reference. His erudition and his - to quote ~ o m b r i c h ~-' 'enjoyment of
the virtuosities of erudition' have led to his being considered a 'bookish' scholar who
worked in his study with books and photographs only. He was accused of a lack of
interest in form, in art itself. Everybody who knew this exceptional man knows how false
such an opinion is, and that this kind of criticism was altogether unjust. But it is certainly
true that his main interest was in meaning, which he saw everywhere and which he knew
how to reveal to others.42 In that he typified the basic interests of contemporary huma-
nistic studies, of which he was in several respects the precursor.

5. Historian, writer, critic

The value of many scientific theories is revealed in, and sometimes limited to, their fruit-
fulness, especially in the case of methodological rather than ontological theories.
Panofsky's system, whatever criticism can be applied to it, and however much one could
try to make it more perfect, has passed that critical test with flying colors. I doubt
whether the - in some respects amended - versions proposed by Klein, Teyssedre and
Forssman could pass it.42a Panofsky's system had the imprint of genius: in its recommen-
dations of practical procedure it was unambiguous; it was a flash of revelation opening
the eyes to things unseen before. It was rational, compact and fruitful.
It should be stressed that Panofsky conceived the work of art first of all as an object
designed for a practical function, either as a vehicle of communication or a tool. In order
to qualify as a work of art the object would have been created not only with an intention
of practical use but also of giving an aesthetic experience. An art historian 'constitutes his
"material" bij means of intuitive aesthetic re-creation, including the perception and ap-
praisal of "quality" '.43 Therefore it is not right to say that Panofsky omitted the
aesthetic element. The task of the historian is to find out that he has to do with a 'man-
made object demanding to be experienced aesthetically'; that is how he defines the object
of his study. In a letter of August 24, 1965 he cleared up hls attitude to that question:44
'I am the last to deny his [George Kubler's] contention that - as Aristotle and St.Thomas
knew so well - evev man-made object produced with a purpose - is (or rather can be) a
legitimate object of "art" historical or "art" critical investigation - if and when it has an
"aesthetic" intention together with an infinite variety of others. But the fact remains that
we ourselves must realize and qualify that "intention" (otherwise there would be no
rationalizable difference between the descriptions of a motor car by an engineer and an

40. Millard Meiss, obituary 9, in the volume quoted in footnote 2.

41. E.H.Gombrich, obituary, quoted in footnote 6.
42. Harold Chemiss IOf., obituary in the volume quoted in footnote 2.
42a. Robert Klein, 'Considirations sur les fondernents de l'iconographie', Archivio di Filosofia,
1963, 419-436; Bemard Teyss&dre, article quoted in footnote 18a; Erik Forssman, 'Ikonologie und
allgemeine Kunstgeschichte', Zeitschrift fur Aesthetik und allgemeine Kunsfwissenschaft, XI, 1966,
132-169.
43. Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts, 14f.
44. A letter in the present writer's possession.
art historian); and for this realization and qualification we need explore what the artist
had in mind - including, in certain cases, iconological content and, in all cases, an auto-
nomous frame of reference determined only by artistic "Grundprobleme" '.
Panofsky was an hstorian but also a philosopher and he liked to build up logical
constructions. Nevertheless it would be a mistake to give undue stress to methodological
theories in the evaluation of h s work. Had it not been verified by a hundred excellent
studies, his theory would probably have remained buried in the pages of specialized
periodicals. It should also perhaps be added that in practice Panofsky was by no means
always true to h s prescriptions, and in each separate case he adopted lines of investiga-
tion suited t o the particular task he was setting himself.
His ambition was not only to solve particular questions but also, and above all, to
formulate general statements, somethtng like 'humanistic laws'. Perhaps two of
Panofsky's statements in particular will remain long-lived acquisitions of art-historical
scholarshp. First is the law he formulated in collaboration with Saxl, based on Warburg's
studies, concerning the relation of the literary and visual tradition of antiquity in the
Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, according to Panofsky, 'classical subjects were repre-
sented by non-classical forms, and classical forms were used for representation of non-
classical subjects'. The text-tradition a i d the image-tradition of antiquity were separated.
They were reunited only at the peak of the Renaissance at the beginning of the 16th
century.45 That correct and pertinent observation became a lasting element of historical
knowledge.
Panofsky's second discovery is of what he called 'disguised symbolism'. 15th-century
painting aimed at representing real space; mediaeval symbolic thtnking had to obey the
laws of the new realism. Since however the principle itself of conveying meaning through
symbols did not disappear, symbols had to take on the form of actual objects coexisting
with people in the same space. In thts way 'disguised symbolism' was created, as a
consequence of the union of realism and symbolic thinking.
That discovery, while it gave new perspectives to the second and third stages of art-
historical interpretation, also created a serious methodological problem, concerning the
principles of control. Where was interpretation to stop? Could every object always and
for everybody bear all the symbolical meanings ever connected with it? Panofsky insisted
on the application of strict historical methods and common sense moderated by historical
knowledge. He was distressed by the fantastic and uncritical interpretations proposed by
his followers, for which he felt at least partly, responsible. In one of his last works, the
book Tomb Sculpture of 1964, he admonished the younger scholars: 'Nor should we
overlook the danger of reading a profound significance into each and every detail. The
human race is both playful and forgetful, and many a motif originally fraught with
meaning came to be used for "purely decorative" purposes when this meaning has fallen
into oblivion or had ceased to be of interest. I am convinced, however, that very few
motifs were invented for "purely decorative" purposes from the outset: even so light-
hearted an ornament as the garland or festoon (serta) ubiquitous in Roman art and

45. First formulated together with Saxl in 'Classical Mythology in Mediaeval Art', Metropolitan
Museum Studies, IV, 1933, 228-280. Developed in Studies in Iconology, New York 1939 and in
Renaissance and Renascences, Uppsala-Stockholm, 1960.
enthusiastically revived by the Renaissance, was ritual in origin and the specific connec-
tion of such longae coronae with funerary rites is attested by as venerable a source as the
Twelve ~ a b l e s . ' ~
A tendency to precision, reflected in his attempts to establish laws, predisposed that
master of philology to a love for the sciences and partisanship in favor of their application
in art history. His close collaboration with the Brussels Laboratoire Central and his
friendslp with its creator, Paul Coremans, were proofs of that attitude. A record of that
aspect of his interests is preserved in Panofsky's obituary of orem mans.^^ Panofsky
stressed the close link between technological and scientific analysis and the humanistic
investigation of a work of art. Experience aided by instruments is blind if not led by the
'aprioristic' humanistic considerations that properly precede it. Panofsky availed himself
eagerly and often of the results of laboratory investigation, using X-rays and technological
analysis not only in his research on Jan van Eyck, but also on Poussin and Titian.
Technology rewarded him for that recognition, confirming one of the beautiful analy-
tical investigations included in his study of Rembrandt's Danae of 1933. Panofsky de-
monstrated the originality of Rernbrandt's iconographic conception against the back-
ground of tradition. He reconstructed Rembrandt's 'ideal' transformation of the usual
type of Danae by the elimination of the golden shower in favor of rays of golden light, by
shifting the position of the old nurse and by modifying the pose and gesture of the
heroine. Technical investigations by Soviet scholars in the Hermitage, recently published
and interpreted by Youri Kousnetsov, have confirmed Panofsky's thesis, revealing un-
expectedly that the process reconstructed by the scholar was not 'ideal' but quite real:
traces of the original, traditional invention have been found in the lower strata of the
picture. They were changed by the master some dozen or more years after the execution
of the original version.48
Looking into the pictorial structure of the work of art, trying to reach its prima idea,
Panofsky was far from restricting himself only to tracing content, meaning and symbo-
lism. Like any inventor of a new method he was and still is looked upon in a one-sided
way. Opposing that current distorted appraisal, Panofsky's elder colleague, Walter Fried-
lander is reported by ~ o m b r i c hto~have
~ said: 'He is not as learned as all that, but he has
a wonderful eye.' Some of Panofsky's analyses of style, form and individual features of
artistic expression are among the best-known in the whole history of art. One such
masterpiece of critical and historical thought, based on an observation of Voge's, is
Panofsky's systematized and precisely formulated definition of the relation of volume
and space in Romanesque and Gothic sculpture, in his study on perspective.50 Another
one is his excellent characterization of Diirer's graphic technique;51 still another the

46. Erwin Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture, New York 1964, 32f.

47. Idem, 'The promoter of a new cooperation between the natural sciences and the history of art',
Bulletin de l'lnstirut Royal du Pam'moine Artistique, VIII, 1965, 62-67.
48. Youri Kousnetsov in Soobshthenia Gos. Ermitagea, XXVII, 1966, 26; Oud Holland, LXXXII,
1968, 225-232; Kurt Bauch, Studien zur Kunstgeschichte, Berlin 1967, 132f.; Youri Kousnetsov,
Zagadki 'Danai', Leningrad 1970.
49. E.H.Gombrich, obituary, O.C.359.
50. 'Die Perspektive als "symbolische Form" ', Vortrage der Bibliothek Warburg [1924-251 1927,
. - der Kunstwissenschaft
258ff.: Erwin Panofskv. Aufiatze zu Grundfraaen . (H.Oberer
. and E.Verheven.
ed.) Berlin 1964, 113-il5. .
5 1 . Albrecht Diirer, Princeton 1943 [also 1945 and 1948],47f., 63ff., 133f.
description of Jan van Eyck's style, crowning Panofsky's presentation of his work. Van
Eyck's interpretation of the world is characterized as a unique linking of a vision of
d e t d s with the grasping of an immense whole.52
Panofsky's powerful mind was well served by h s talent as a writer. He was probably an
exception among German emigrants, since he mastered the language of his new country
not only in a perfect but even in a creative way. Rensselaer Lee characterizes Panofsky's
English style thus in his obituary:53 'crisp, humorous, sometimes ironical, full of lights
and half-lights that mirror subtle changes in h s own feeling, and above all, never dull. Had
he remained in Germany the history of art written in English would have suffered an
immeasurable loss.'
There are, however, some features of thought and verbalization common to the Ger-
man and Enghsh works. Every attentive reader of Panofsky's writings notes one of them
at least. It is his inclination constantly to contrast two qualities, values, tendencies; his
inclination to use an antithetic scale, as it were. Sometimes he likes to play with relations
he has discovered, reversing them in order to reinforce the connection of elements. That
way of thmking, which became a stylistic figure too, sometimes seems to be a literary
ornament not always contributing to the classification of his argument.54
Sometimes his way of leading an argument through constant comparisons of con-
trasting concepts or values acheves brilliant results, as for instance when he compares the
concepts of spatial and historical distance, unknown to the Middle ~ ~ e .Perhaps ' the
most beautiful example of all is his magnificent polyphonic consideration of the exact
and the humanistic sciences, reprinted as the introduction to his book Meaning in the
Visual Arts. In that essay he condensed into a few pages for the American readers his
great wisdom about art and art history.56
In the American period, three times longer than his activity in Hamburg, Panofsky's
function was quite different from that of an academic teacher in Germany. Attuning
himself to the conception of scholarship and culture in America, he participated in a way
unknown in Germany in the popularization of knowledge. An indefatigable and enthu-
siastic lecturer, entrancing his audiences by the content as well as the form of his lectures
- and first of all by his sense of humor - he knew how to link h s creative, lonely
scholarly work, done in the seclusion of the Princeton Institute, with pedagogic activity
on various levels. Every second year he conducted a guest seminar at Princeton Univer-
sity, with whch he always had friendly relations. Several invitations brought hlrn for
longer or shorter periods to such institutions as Harvard University, Bryn Mawr College,
New York University (where he began his American career in 1931 as a Visiting Profes-
sor) and the Benedictine Abbey of St.Vincent in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
Everywhere he aroused interest and enthusiasm and everywhere he left students.
Everywhere he suggested subjects, offered ideas, encouraged and helped. He used his
growing authority to endorse applications for scholarshps, funds and grants whenever he

52. Early Netherlandish Painting, Cambridge, Mass. 1953, 180-182.

53. Rensselaer W.Lee, obituary, Art Journal 1968, 568.
54. This was observed already by Julius Held in his review of Early Netherlandish Painting, Art
Bulletin, XXXVII, 1955, 207.
55. 'Artist, Scientist, Genius', The Renaissance, Six Essays. New York 1962, 129.
56. 'The History of Art as a Humanistic Discibline' (19401, in: hleaning in the VisualArts, 1-25.
thought they were necessary and useful. As Professor at the School of Historical Studies
of the Institute for Advanced Study he proposed annually the names of art historians
from all over the world for temporary membership of the Institute, giving them in this
way the possibility to work under ideal conditions.
He was gifted with such extraordinary personal charm that everybody who once came
into the orbit of his influence remained forever under his spell. People who conducted
violent polemics against his works became friends of Panofsky's for life when they got to
know h s amazing mind and his unexpected receptivity, even to the ideas of young
colleagues. Short in stature and far from beautiful, he was attracted in his historical
imagination by 'little great men', as he called them. We find that idea in his beautiful
essay on Abbot Suger, where he gave us a - doubtless autobiographical - account of
people for whom 'an exceptionally small physique seems to be insignificant in the eyes of
history'. It was certainly not without personal reference that as motto of his Suger
monograph Panofsky chose the couplet found in the obituary of the great abbot written
by Simon Capra Aurea:
Corpore, gente brevis, gemina brevitate coactus:
In brevitate sua noluit esse b r e ~ i s . ~ ~
A passionate reader, also of detective novels, a lover of A. Conan Doyle, an enthusias-
tic amateur of music who always had the Kochel-Verzeichnis at hand in his living room,
an intrepid discussion partner of physicists and mathematicians around the Institute, a
man who used to give a lift in the afternoon to h s old maid Emma, bringing her in h s
very old Cadillac to the Negro quarter of Princeton. He had a special fondness for blacks.
Universally admired and loved, he reciprocated these feelings with warmth, never
leaving a letter unanswered, an offprint without a wise and witty commentary as a certain
proof that he had read the text through eagerly.

6 . Humanist and man

In his life and in h s scholarship Panofsky followed the ideal of the humanistic attitude,
whch he characterized most beautifully in his lecture of 1940, mentioned already.
Humanitas meant for him the strength of man, expressed in h s reason and freedom of
will, but at the same time the weakness of man, expressed in his shortcomings. From this
concept of humanitas he deduced the claim of responsibility of man for his own conduct,
but also of toleration for the shortcomings of his fellow men. He did not accept any form
of determinism, a doctrine whlch deprives man of h s freedom to decide about his own
behavior, and eventually liberates him of any responsibility for his words and acts. He
disagreed also with those who deny the moral significance of human acts. He was anta-
gonistic to aestheticism, 'insectolatrism' professing the all-importance of the hive, but also
to subordination to any authority not controlled by reason and moral law.
He appreciated the 'ironical skepticism' of Erasmus and his 'unheroic love' of study in
tranquilhty, but he recalled the duty inherent in the concept of a humanist of being a
watchman on the tower. The humanist is in a privileged position, commands a view of a

57. Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church o f St.Denis and Its Art Treasures, Princeton 1946,
Introduction. 1-37.
large horizon unobstructed by practical little problems of everyday life; but he has a
responsibility 'which devolves upon the tower dweller not in spite but because of the fact
that he dwells in a tower.' The humanist perceives social and political dangers faster than
others. His duty is to spy out calamities and to raise his voice to prevent them. And he
should not remain silent when it is necessary to speak.58
A humanist, in Panofsky's conception, rejects uncontrolled authority, but he respects
tradition, and in interpreting it he discovers lasting values in the human records which he
transmits to posterity. He analyzes signs and structures which emerge from the stream of
time, left behind by men of past times who expressed through them their thoughts. The
humanist is thus, fundamentally, an historian who 'endeavors to transform the chaotic
variety of human records into what may be called a cosmos of culture,' just as a scientist
'endeavors to transform the chaotic variety of natural phenomena into what may be
called a cosmos of nature.' The human world creates history by interfering with time,
opposing conscious records of human existence to its flow. The task of the humanist is to
decode these records, to understand their message and to transmit them further, to
resuscitate that which without the humanist would remain dead, destroyed by time. The
natural sciences, Panofsky wrote, attain a sum of knowledge called by the Latin word
scientia; the humanities attain learning, eruditio. The first is a mental possession, the
second a mental process. 'The ideal aim of science would seem to be something like
mastery, that of the humanities something like wisdom.'59
Within that cosmos of culture built up by the humanist - may I continue Panofsky's
argument - the art historian constructs the world of art. Although the number of ma-
terial objects, its components, remains static or grows slowly, the function, the structure
and the content of that world change, transformed by the mind of the scholar, who
constitutes them according to his own conception of the cosmos of culture, according to
the way in which his intellect and his imagination organize that cosmos.
The mind of the scholar is like a convex mirror which concentrates our sight on
specific objects, qualities, problenis and values. Some scholars present to us a foggy but
beautiful image; the image presented by others is out of focus but touching; still others
present an image of absolute sharpness, where we see each detail, but where the life of art
is extinguished.
Panofsky's mirror showed the cosmos of art in a way similar to that in which one of
the artists closest to him, Jan van Eyck, showed the real world in his pictures. In a
masterly way that painter solved the fundamental problem confronting his generation of
artists: to establish an equilibrium between the analytic and synthetic view, between the
general view of the forest and the individual trees. 'Jan van Eyck's eye operates as a
microscope and as a telescope at the same time.' Panofsky said.60 Likewise, the profound
vision of the great art historian penetrated the meaning and structure of the whole and of
the parts; it revealed great areas of thought and values, projecting a synthetic image of
them based on the most detailed possible analysis of the individual elements. In its

58. 'In Defense of the Ivory Tower', The Centennial Review of Arts and Science, I (N2), 1957,
111-112; 'Three Decades of Art History in the United States: Impressions of a Transplanted
European', [I9531, Meaning in the Visual Arts, 321-346.
5 9. Meaning in the Visual Arts, 25.
60. Early Netherlandish Painting, 18 2 .
panoramic view, composed according to the fundamental problems formulated by 'trans-
cendental analysis', Panofsky's vision took up everything in its ken with a strong feeling
for matter, objects, people and facts.
The cosmos of culture built by humanists changes; it is transformed and becomes
richer with the labors of the re-creating and creating hands of scholars. The art historian
changes that cosmos of art which existed before he came; he does it by discovering a new
beauty, a new function or a new content.
As a mass of material objects, the world of art could remain a mass of lifeless thmgs.
Organized by the thought of humanists into a cosmos, it comes to life and becomes a vital
power. Panofsky was one of the great architects of that cosmos. He has given life to it. He
left it quite different than he found it. In countless places of that immense land hls trace
has been so deeply engraved that facing works of art whose meaning he has revealed, it
would be impossible ever to forget that Erwin Panofsky fuit hic.