Erwin Panofsky
Erwin Panofsky was a German-Jewish art historian whose work represents a high point in the modern academic study of iconography, including his hugely influential Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art and his seminal Early Netherlandish Painting.
Panofsky's ideas were highly influential in intellectual history in general, particularly in his use of historical ideas to interpret artworks and vice versa. Many of his books are still in print, including Studies in Iconology: Humanist Themes in the Art of the Renaissance, Meaning in the Visual Arts, and his 1943 study The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer. His academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime.
Early life in Germany
Early life
Panofsky was born on 30 March 1892 in Hanover. His parents, Arnold and Caecilie Panofsky, were a rentier mining family from Upper Silesia. Panofsky's cultured Jewish family played a significant role in shaping his career as an art historian. He was immersed in an environment that valued education and cultural refinement from a young age, and was exposed to classical music and literature such as Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare’s sonnets and the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. He did not observe Jewish religious customs as an adult, but he remained proud of his heritage, sharing stories of his grandfather, a renowned Talmud scholar.College life
He received his Abitur in 1910 at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium. These years were particularly influential, as he believed the humanistic education he received there was fundamental to his scholarly achievements. He entered Berlin University as a law student. During his first semester, he attended a lecture by Wilhelm Vöge on Albrecht Dürer and discovered an interest in art history.During his studies, he attended courses by the art historians Heinrich Wölfflin, Edmund Hildebrandt, Karl Voll, Carl Frey, Werner Weisbach and Adolph Goldschmidt. When he was 19, he joined a competition held by the Grimm Foundation and won an award from it. The subject had been set by Wölfflin and Goldschmidt, who assessed the work submitted. Panofsky's essay was entitled Dürer's Theory of Art, Primarily as it Relates to Italian Theory. A part of the paper was submitted as his doctoral dissertation at the University of Freiburg. The dissertation was published in 1915 as Die theoretische Kunstlehre Albrecht Dürers ''.'' After a riding accident, Panofsky was exempted from military service during World War I. In the spring of 1917, he was considered fit for duty on the home front and was assigned government positions in Kassel and then Berlin, where he was responsible for distributing coal to civilians. He was demobilized in January 1919.
Teaching in German
In December 1918, while working in Berlin, Panofsky applied for habilitation at the University of Heidelberg, proposing to submit either his 1915 expanded Dürers Kunsttheorie vornehmlich in ihrem Verhältnis zur Kunsttheorie der Italiener or Der Westbau des Doms zu Minden. He withdrew the application in March 1919 due to unexplained circumstances. By August 1919, he shifted focus to the University of Tübingen but never finalized the thesis. Following Gustav Pauli's invitation in December 1919 to teach art history at the University of Hamburg, Panofsky agreed on the condition of simultaneously pursuing habilitation. By March 11, 1920, he formally submitted the completed first section of his study on Michelangelo’s stylistic development to the university’s Faculty of Philosophy and later, he will complete the second part at the end of the year. Pauli, reviewing the thesis by March 20, privately advised Panofsky to secure housing in Hamburg, anticipating a favorable outcome. Despite Panofsky’s concerns over a three-month administrative silence, the evaluation process advanced: Pauli submitted his endorsement to the habilitation committee on May 10, 1920, and by June 3, committee members Max Lenz, Ernst Cassirer and Otto Lauffer had unanimously approved the application. The Faculty of Philosophy ratified the decision on June 19, scheduling Panofsky's :de:Probevorlesung|Probevorlesung for July 3, 1920. Titled Die Entwicklung der Proportionslehre als Abbild der Stilentwicklung, the lecture successfully concluded his habilitation, granting him the venia legendi and securing his position at Hamburg.During this period, one of his early works was Idea: Ein Beitrag zur Begriffsgeschichte der älteren Kunstheorie, based on the ideas of Ernst Cassirer.However, shortly after his successful habilitation in July 1920, the manuscript vanished under unclear circumstances. Though on July 3, 1920, based on letter to Dora Panofsky, his wife at that time revealed plans to revise the text suggesting the work was still in his possession. Yet, by 1964, when Egon Verheyen inquired about the thesis after encountering its citation in an article by Gert van der Osten, Panofsky confirmed its loss, stating, “The original manuscript is lost”. It is assumed that the manuscript was lost after he moved his remaining belongings from Germany in 1943/44. Gerda Panofsky was unable to locate it, possibly because Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich, who had studied under Panofsky, was in possession of the manuscript from 1946 to 1970, and brought it to Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, where the manuscript was found in its basement. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Willibald Sauerländer shed some light on the question of whether Heydenreich shared his recovery of the manuscript or not: "Panofsky has historically distanced himself from his early writings on Michelangelo, as he tired of the subject, and," according to Sauerländer "developed a professional conflict with Austro-Hungarian art historian Johannes Wilde, who accused Panofsky of not crediting him with ideas gleaned from a conversation they had about Michelangelo drawings. Perhaps Panofsky didn't care about the whereabouts of his lost work and Heydenreich was not malicious in keeping it a secret... but questions still remain." Then, the original 1920 manuscript of Panofsky's Habilitationsschrift, his second dissertation, which is titled Die Gestaltungsprinzipien Michelangelos, besonders in ihrem Verhältnis zu denen Raffaels, was found in August 2012 by art historian Stephan Klingen. The manuscript is published as book on 2014 with Gerda as the editor.
Teaching in United States
Period before permanently moved to United States
Panofsky has already expressed interest in visiting America as early as 1929 on his correspondence with Fritz Saxl, and in 1930, he was invited by New York University to serve as a Visiting Professor by recommendation from Goldschmidt. At that time, NYU's College of Fine Arts, which would later become the Institute of Fine Arts, was in the process of establishing America's first graduate department for art-historical research. By his participation, he helped Richard Offner and Walter William Spencer Cook to shape the department. Then, Panofsky was scheduled to teach during the Fall term of 1931-32, offering graduate-level courses along with a series of public lectures, all delivered in English.During this first visit, Panofsky immersed himself in the scholarly environment of the East Coast, strengthening and expanding his American connections. He reconnected with Paul Sachs at Harvard delivering a lecture at the Fogg Museum. Panofsky had previously met Sachs in 1927 when Sachs visited Hamburg to inspect Aby Warburg’s Institute. He also visited Charles Rufus Morey, Alfred Barr, William J. Ivins and was introduced by Edward Warburg to a wealthy New York elite. Panofsky usually gave lectures at weekly salons hosted by Josephine Porter Boardman Crane which acquainted him with prominent figures such as the Rockefellers and the Straus family of Macy’s Department Store. This network will be beneficial when he later lost his position in Hamburg.
Following the success of his initial visit, Panofsky was considered for a return to the College of Fine Arts at NYU the following year. He managed to secure two additional twelve-week lecture courses for the spring of 1933 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Upon his return to America, Panofsky worked as an itinerant art historian, delivering lectures across the East Coast. With Adolf Hitler's appointment as Chancellor shortly after his arrival in New York, Panofsky expressed to Margaret Scolari Barr his relief at being in America, rather than witnessing the unfolding political crisis in Germany.
Although initially allowed to spend alternate terms in Hamburg and New York City, Panofsky’s appointment in Hamburg was terminated in 1933 after the Nazis came to power. This dismissal was due to his Jewish background. Panofsky faced limited employment opportunities outside of Germany, and the College of Fine Arts, due to a lack of funds, had not planned to invite him back after his spring lectureship. Cook could only offer Panofsky a single lecture course for the following year. With no immediate job prospects in America, Panofsky returned to his family in Hamburg, where conditions remained relatively safe at the time. Without teaching duties, he concentrated on his research and traveled to Belgium and France, including a visit to Henri Focillon, to explore future employment possibilities. Panofsky returned to New York in January 1934 to fulfill a temporary commitment to Cook and NYU, while Dora and their two young sons stayed in Hamburg.
Overwhelmed by his teaching and administrative duties at NYU, Panofsky lamented the lack of time for his own research and the prioritization of monetary concerns over scholarly pursuits. He expressed frustration to Margaret Barr about his extensive workload, including organizing syllabi, correcting test papers, and conducting numerous lectures and consultations. Although he appreciated Walter Cook's efforts in securing his position, he was critical of Cook's scholarly status and uncomfortable relying on financial support from New York's high society. Panofsky's dissatisfaction was further highlighted in a letter to Gertrud Bing, where he criticized the use of his seminar for NYU's publicity without his consent. Panofsky's first choice after 1933 was not to settle in America but to secure a position with the Warburg Library in London, which was central to his humanistic scholarship. Despite his efforts, those involved with the Library decided to help more disadvantaged exiled scholars.
His early visits were financially motivated, as his NYU salary sustained his family’s rent in Hamburg—a fact he disclosed to Walter Friedländer. In a letter to Margaret Barr, he criticized American life as culturally “sterile” and critiqued U.S. academia: while he praised some Princeton graduate students, he derided NYU students as “stupid and ignorant.” During his 1934 return to NYU, his lectures were simplified for a paying public audience, leaving him feeling like a “workhorse.” NYU and Princeton University collaborated to provide him with paid work for two years. Cook secure a two-year Visiting Professorship for Panofsky at NYU in the fall of 1934 with a salary of $6000, while Morey arranged housing and schooling for Panofsky's family in Princeton in exchange for his teaching in the Department of Art and Archaeology. By this point, Panofsky had resolved never to return to Germany and was committed to establishing a permanent life in the United States.He finally secured a permanent position at the Institute for Advanced Study in April 1935. The IAS, founded by Abraham Flexner in 1930, was unique in its mission to emphasize research and advanced teaching without the burden of administrative duties or introductory teaching responsibilities, which aligned with Panofsky's needs. Panofsky was recommended for a faculty position by Morey. Flexner offered Panofsky a generous salary of $10,000, allowing him to continue his collaboration with Morey at Princeton and utilize Morey's established Index of Christian Art.
During his stay in America, he became part of the Kahler-Kreis which consisted of Erich Kahler acquaintances, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the British Academy. In 1936 he was awarded his first Honorary Doctorate, by Utrecht University in the Netherlands, which was facilitated by his friendship with the Utrecht professor Willem Vogelsang. In 1954 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1962 he received the Haskins Medal of The Medieval Academy of America. In 1947–1948 Panofsky was the Charles Eliot Norton professor at Harvard University; the lectures later became Early Netherlandish Painting.
He became particularly well known for his studies of symbols and iconography in art. First in a 1934 article, then in his Early Netherlandish Painting, Panofsky was the first to interpret Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait as not only a depiction of a wedding ceremony, but also a visual contract testifying to the act of marriage. Panofsky identifies a plethora of hidden symbols that all point to the sacrament of marriage. In recent years, this conclusion has been challenged, but Panofsky's work with what he called "hidden" or "disguised" symbolism is still very much influential in the study and understanding of Northern Renaissance art. Similarly, in his monograph on Dürer, Panofsky gives lengthy "symbolic" analyses of the prints Knight, Death, and the Devil and Melencolia I, the former based on Erasmus's Handbook of a Christian Knight.
Panofsky was known to be a friend with physicists Wolfgang Pauli and Albert Einstein. His younger son, Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, became a renowned physicist who specialized in particle accelerators. His elder son, Hans A. Panofsky, was "an atmospheric scientist who taught at Pennsylvania State University for 30 years and who was credited with several advances in the study of meteorology". As Wolfgang Panofsky related, his father used to call his sons "meine beiden Klempner". William S. Heckscher was a student, fellow emigre, and close friend. In 1973 he was succeeded at Princeton by Irving Lavin.
Erwin Panofsky has been recognized as both a "highly distinguished" professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, and in Jeffrey Chipps' biography of the subject as "the most influential art historian of the twentieth century". In 1999, the new "Panofsky Lane", in that Institute's faculty housing complex, was named in his honor.