Figural philology : Panofsky and the science of things / Adi Efal.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Efal, Adi, author.

Series:

Bloomsbury studies in continental philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Panofsky, Erwin, 1892-1968.

Panofsky, Erwin.

Art--Historiography.

Art.

Art--Philosophy.

Physical Description:

ix unnumbered pages, 207 pages ; 24 cm.

Other Title:

Panofsky and the science of things

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

Summary:

"Though inspired by a Panofskyan legacy, this book diverges at certain points from Erwin Panofsky's declared objectives, and calls attention to several of aspects that were until now less accentuated in his intellectual reception. Insisting on the importance of iconology as a method for art history and the humanities in general, it shows how examining this promotes a cooperation between the history of art and the history of philosophy. It discusses whether Panofsky's method could be of use for general questions in the epistemology of the historical sciences that examine human works. How could and should one approach a historical inquiry of human-produced things, after the Kantian revolution has taken its toll on the humanities, and forbidden the approach to things "as themselves"? Within the core of the discipline of art history, and certainly in its iconological version, there is a philological kernel to be found. This could assist in addressing the historical meaning of artworks from a realist point of view. This preliminary hypothesis shows the work of Panofsky to share affinities with twentieth-century romance philology. A reading of Panofsky's work alongside the philological enterprise of Erich Auerbach and several other authors demonstrates that a proper appropriation of the philological impulse by art historical method can supply a way out of the methodological antimony still hanging between hyper-formalist and hyper-theoretical approaches to the history of art. Distilling Panofsky's writings, Efal selects the elements that could be useful for philosophy" -- back cover.

Contents:

1. Philological rationality and the constitution of the history of art

2. Archimedean points: Monuments as duration reservoirs

Panofsky's Riegl

Philological imperatives in Riegl's methods

The curse and the blessing in the study of artworks

Art history as Korrektur of monuments

Riegl's Alterswert

Kunstwollen and meaning

Philological reproduction of past realities

3. Forms and figures: Two fundamental modes of pictorial production

Forms and figures within the pictorial domain

Figuration in the history of art

The figural situation

Figuration and meaning

Forms and figures

From the plastic to the pictorial

4. Pictorial validities in art and history

Panofsky's Idea and the disclosure of the iconoclastic structure

Ideas between truth and reality in Idea

Auerbach's 'Figura': Plasticity and history

'Real and historical': The figural mechanics of validation

Reality, value and truth: Two versions of realist argumentation

Iconophilic method

5. Sub figuralitate historiæ

The figure and the reality of the past

Figural and historical meaning

6. Iconological space: Panofsky with Warburg

Panofsky's historical space-time

Simmel's historical time

Warburg's art history and philology

Warburg's philological gaze

Vitalisms and archaism

Iconology and philology

7. The figural synthesis of historical reality in the iconology table

Synthesis

Symbols, ideas and values

From symbolical value to synthetic intuition

Intuition and synthesis

Figural synthesis

8. Philology's recollective habitus: Panofsky with Spitzer, Auerbach and Curtius

The Aristotelian distinction between memory and recollection

Two modes of memory

The role of figures in recollection

Humanism as a recollective activity

Hylomorphist humanism

Figural distinction: A model for the recollective disjunction

Elastic hylomorphism

9. Figural content and the past as a res extensa

Iconoclasm, iconism and the reality of the past

The past reality of a work versus historical meaning

The two unseen prototypes of the artwork

Vanishing point and carrying surface: Spatialities of historical explication

Past reality of works and the reality of the past

The distance between the reality of the past and the historical reality of a work

Nonseen and figured

Conclusion: Towards a figural philology

The domain

Historical meaning, past reality, historical reality

Philological production

Distinctive realism

Untemporal history

Moderate historicism

Panofsky.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-202) and index.

ISBN:

9781474254014

1474254012

OCLC:

949870223

Publisher Number:

99973176632