The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline

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The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline

• Erwin Panofsky (1955)

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline

• I. The history of the concept (Humanitas -
  Humanism - Humanities)
• II. The object of study steps (humanities /
  natural sciences)
• III. The material of study (natural phenomena /
  works of art)
• IV. Methods of interpretation / explanation
  (humanities / natural sciences)
• V. Why humanities?

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (I)

• I. The history of the concept
• Humanitas - Humanism - Humanities
• humanitas has had two clearly distinguishable
  meanings
• 1. Man and what is less than man (animality)
• 2. Man and what is more than man (divinity)
• humanism ambivalence bw rationality / freedom
  and fallibility / frailty results in the
  humanistic postulate of responsibility and
  tolerance as human values

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (II)

• II. The object of study and steps
• Mans signs and structures are records because,
  or rather in so far as, they express ideas
  separated from, yet realized by, the processes of
  signaling and building. These records have
  therefore the quality of emerging from the
  streams of time, and it is precisely in this
  respect that they are studied by the humanist. He
  is, fundamentally, an historian.

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (II)

• II. The object of study and steps
• humanities
• tradition, records of the past, historical facts
  (documents, structures)
• examination of records
• the cosmos of culture

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (II)

• II. The object of study and steps
• sciences
• naturally found objects, phenomena, laws of
  nature
• the cosmos of nature

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (II)

• II. The object of study and steps
• Relationship bw monuments, documents and a
  general historical concept in the humanities
• Relationship between phenomena, instruments and
  theory in the natural sciences

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (III)

• III. The material of study (What is a work of
  art?)
• Issue of artistic / authorial intention and its
  rootedness in a particular historical period
  (objects are conditioned by the standards of
  their period and environment)
• Our interpretation of intentions are biased by
  our own attitude which is based on our own
  individual experiences and historical situation

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (IV)

• IV. Methods of interpretation / explanation
• humanities / natural sciences
• Scientists deal with natural phenomena
  (explanation in terms of objective, repeatable
  examination of physical reality)
• Humanists deal with human actions and creations
  (explanation is intuitive aesthetic re-creation
  reconstruction mentally needs to re-enact the
  actions and re-create the creations )

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (IV)

• IV. Methods of interpretation / explanation
• humanities / natural sciences
• Humanist method (organic situation,
  re-constructive terminology)
• to study the formal principles that control the
  rendering of the visible world (familiarizes
  himself with the social, religious and
  philosophical attitudes of other periods and
  countries, continually checking own experiences
  against archaeological research)
• Paradox How, then, is it possible to build up
  art history as a respectable scholarly
  discipline, if its very objects come into being
  by an irrational and subjective process?

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (IV)

• IV. Methods of interpretation
• Appreciationism (naïve observers)
• Connoisseurship (clinical examination in terms of
  provenance and authorship, evaluation in terms of
  quality and condition)
• Art history (observers using established
  terminology that expresses broader structures
  stylistic distinctions, rhetoric of expression)
• Art theory (access to structures, formal elements
  of art)

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (V)

• V. Why humanities?
• If humanities are not practical, because they
  concern themselves with the past, why should we
  engage in such impractical investigations, and
  why should we be interested in the past?
• Because It is impossible to conceive of our
  world in terms of action alone reality involves
  interpretation of reality the moment one thinks
  it contemplation of reality not at the surface

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History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (V)

• V. Why humanities? Reality is understood as
  inter-penetration of world in terms of thought
  and in terms of action.
• When I said that the man who is run over by an
• automobile is run over by mathematics, physics
  and
• chemistry, I could just as well have said that he
  is run
• over by Euclid, Archimedes and Lavoisier
• (Panofsky 1975, 23)