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‘The Concept of Kunstwollen ’, neo-Kantianism, and Erwin Panofsky's early art theoretical essays

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 20; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02666286.2004.10444004

1943-2178

Allister Neher,

Visual Culture and Art Theory

Abstract At the beginning of ‘Der Begriff des Kunstwollens’ (‘The Concept of Kunstwollen’), Erwin Panofsky makes a statement that encapsulates one of the principal lines of inquiry that runs through his early art theoretical essays: It is the curse and the blessing of the systematic study of art that it demands that the objects of its study must be grasped with necessity and not merely historically. A purely historical examination whether it goes first to content or to the history of form, elucidates the phenomenal work of art only by reference to other phenomena, it does not have any higher order of knowledge on which to ground itself: to trace back the particular iconographic representation, derive a particular formal combination from a typological history, ... is not to fix it in its absolute place and meaning related to an Archimedean point outside its own sphere of being, but it is to remain inside the total complex of actual interconnected appearances.