ABSTRACT
This volume explores a basic question in the historiography of art: the extent to which iconology was a homogenous research method in its own immutable right. By contributing to the rejection of the universalizing narrative, these case studies argue that there were many strands of iconology.
Methods that differed from the ‘canonised’ approach of Panofsky were proposed by Godefridus Johannes Hoogewerff and Hans Sedlmayr. Researchers affiliated with the Warburg Institute in London also chose to distance themselves from Panofsky’s work. Poland, in turn, was the breeding ground for yet another distinct variety of iconology. In Communist Czechoslovakia there were attempts to develop a ‘Marxist iconology’. This book, written by recognized experts in the field, examines these and other major strands of iconology, telling the tale of iconology’s reception in the countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain. Attitudes there ranged from enthusiastic acceptance in Poland, to critical reception in the Soviet Union, to reinterpretation in Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic, and, finally, to outright rejection in Romania.
The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual studies, and historiography.
Chapters 8 and 15 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 international license
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|26 pages
Overview
part II|128 pages
Diverse Concepts of Iconology and Their Use in Western and Central Europe
chapter 6|13 pages
Imperial Style and the Content of Architecture
chapter 7|12 pages
Hans Sedlmayr's Structural Analysis of the Gothic Cathedral
part III|42 pages
(Marxist) Reinterpretation of Iconology Behind the Iron Curtain
chapter 12|13 pages
Sneaking In
part IV|37 pages
Absence and Non-Acceptance of Iconology in Some Regions Behind the Iron Curtain