ABSTRACT
The essays collected in Edwin Panofsky's Meaning in the Visual Arts represent very well the range and depth of his scholarship over a period of more than 30 years, and it would have been impossible for the collection not to have attracted critical attention. The majority of criticism was directed at Panofsky's ideas and methodology rather than to the individual essays per se. Panofsky did not live long enough to respond to the numerous critics of his ideas, although in later publications, he subsequently revised and developed his thinking. A few responses to criticism or to issues that seemed to trouble him can also be found in his correspondence. However, regardless of the criticism, Panofsky himself knew the strengths and weaknesses of his iconological system. Therefore, only when he reprinted the introductory essay of his Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance in Meaning in the Visual Arts did the iconological system achieve its final form.
