ABSTRACT
Without any doubts, Jan Białostocki belonged to the most famous Polish art historians of the twentieth century. He was widely known and recognised as one of the leading authorities in the realm of studies on the history of the Renaissance and baroque art and architecture. Aside from his many studies devoted to certain problems of the meaning of artworks, he wrote extensively on the history of art history, methodology and history of art theory, becoming one of the most energetic exponents of various aspects of the so-called ‘iconology’. He analysed iconology from historical and theoretical points of view. In his interpretations of the iconological method, one can trace a kind of evolution of his thought. Białostocki was well aware of certain limitations of different models of iconology and gradually tried to expand, or transform, its basic theoretical tenets in the direction of the aesthetics of image. In his proposal he put a greater stress on problems of the genesis, reception and impact of images – and these problems should be regarded as a complement and extension of iconological studies. This chapter is an endeavour to describe the aforementioned ‘evolution’ of Białostocki’s attitude towards aims and methods of art history as a discipline.
