Fast Reviews of Books in Renaissance Intellectual History:
Review R20011211

Contact: Dr. Heinrich C. Kuhn (hck@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Document created: 2001-12-11
Last update:2001-12-17

Item reviewed:

Korrespondenz 1910 - 1936
Wiesbaden [Harrassowitz] 2001
LIV, 1142 p. : Ill. ISBN: 3-447-04448-9
Series:Korrespondenz 1910 bis 1968 : eine kommentierte Auswahl in fünf Bänden ; 1

Price: DEM 360 (= ca. EUR 185) / for subscribers: DEM 298 (=ca. EUR 150)

[Bibliographic data formatted for downloading]

This title was reviewed by: Gabriele Sprigath

Item arrived at GGREN on:2001-11-05
Review was finished on:2001-12-10

The Review

• For the history of culture in general and for the historiography of art in particular, this project is a welcome event. Dieter Wuttke, well-known in international Renaissance studies for having revived the challenge posed by Aby Warburg's notion of "cultural history" (Kulturwissenschaft) is publishing Erwin Panofsky's correspondence (1910 to 1968).

  Some figures may indicate the dimensions of the project: D.W. estimates (p. XXXV) that there are some 27,000 letters from and to Panofsky extant worldwide (ca. 2,600 correspondents). Of these letters, D.W. has personally inspected about 24,000 (ca. 2,400 - individuals and institutions) and archived roughly 9,500. About 3,000 letters are earmarked for publication in the "Selected Correspondence" (p. XXXVIII). Volume I includes 607 letters. Each of the subsequent four volumes (Vol. II: 1937-1949, III: 1950-1957, IV: 1957-1961, V: 1962-1968) will include approximately 600.

• In the introduction to Volume I (pp. IX-LIII), D. W. offers a justification - summed up in the claim "editing is interpretation" (p. XXXVI) - for both his method and the editorial procedure he has followed since 1988 (A. Erwin Panofsky's life and works 1892 to 1968, B. Erwin Panofsky's correspondence 1910 to 1968, C. Selected Correspondence in Five Volumes, D. Editorial Report, E. Volume I of the Selected Correspondence 1910-1936, F. Acknowledgments and Dedication). He also provides a historical background to the correspondence included in Volume I - ranging from the period before WW I, when German-American cooperation in the history of culture was in its infancy, to the increasingly critical reception of Panofsky's ideas in recent times. D.W.'s characterization of Panofsky as the "Einstein of the historiography of art" (Kunstgeschichtswissenschaft) does little, however, to promote a methodology which is currently in its death throes. For, in order to legitimate itself as a science, universitarian historiography of art, has felt itself compelled, ever since its beginnings in the 19th century, to demonstrate progress of the kind exhibited by the natural sciences on which it is modeled. In this process, however, art itself has long been lost from sight - a problem that Erwin Panofsky's "iconology," too, has left for posterity to solve . [1]

  D.W. suggests that "the vast body of correspondence," which he calls a "micro-historical compendium of a life and a time," should be read as a "substitute for the autobiography Panofsky never wrote" (p. XXXV). And, in fact, the letters from the years 1910 to 1920 - covering Panofsky's early development, his family relationships and professional beginnings, his meeting with Aby Warburg, his marriage to the art historian Dora Mosse in 1916 and the birth of their two sons - read like episodes in a Entwicklungsroman. Of special interest is Panofsky's letter to Kurt Badt on July 12, 1916, in which he outlines his views on the German government during WW I and the educational responsibilities derived from his own opposition to the war (No. 39, pp. 41-43). He offers a prescient critique of life in the ivory tower: "It is precisely this strangely arrogant disdain for a reality confronting us directly that has caused the war. It is an attitude that must be shed if we do not all wish to bear a joint responsibility for the next one" - an issue which has lost none of its urgency today. However, the young Panofsky's multi-facetted personality also exhibits certain features typical of his generation and social class. So, for example, he writes to Kurt Badt on September 23, 1917, five days after the birth of his first son, "I am very pleased that it is a boy - a being that, God willing, can actively form, search and be self-sufficient rather than a being that is passively formed, waits and requires another for its support." (No. 46)

  The most extensive section of Volume I focuses on two points of special significance for a scientific history of art historiograhy. The first is Panofsky's correspondence with Franz Saxl, which began in 1921, concerning joint projects and the fate of the Warburg library (K.B.W.), which Saxl transferred from Hamburg to London in 1933. The second is the opening phase of Panofsky's relationship with America - a relationship which began in 1931. As a Jew, Panofsky was forbidden to teach at Hamburg University as of 1933. In 1934, he was able to emigrate with his family to the United States. After a year of travelling back and forth between New York and Princeton, he finally began teaching at Princeton University in 1935. All in all, Volume I of the correspondence will be indispensable for future research into the relationship between Aby Warburg's conception of "cultural history" (Kulturwissenschaft) and Panofsky's "iconology."

  Of particular note is the attention which the editor has devoted to each letter. A critical apparatus of comments, explanations and cross-references enables the reader to follow ideas through the maze of references and allusions that the correspondence contains. This would perhaps be even easier, however, if cross-references were accompanied not only by the dates of the relevant letters but also by the numbers assigned to them in the current edition.

  Appendices include Panofsky's 1927 "Problems of Art History" (pp. 957-964), which has been omitted from the German edition of his essays (1988), his review (1934) of J.J. Sweeney's "Plastic Redirection in 20th Century Painting" (pp. 965-966), which ties in with the 1927 essay, and an "Erwin Panofsky Bibliography 1914-1936/37" (pp. 967-980) comprising 89 entries, 15 of which are either omitted from or incompletely listed in current bibliographies. Indexes include the "Chronological Index of Letters" and the especially valuable "Biographical Bibliography of Correspondents" (pp. 1.023-1.088). Illustrations, primarily photographs, accompany the comprehensive text.

• This handsomely produced volume - bound in dark blue cloth with the title printed in gold on a dark red field - provides an excellent example of the way in which editors can help make history come alive by taking seriously their responsibilities as "service providers" (p. XXXII). Which of the manifold, interwoven threads readers will choose to pursue in this labyrinthine network of Western European and North American cultural history depends on the questions they themselves bring to this outstanding edition of the Panofsky correspondence.

• ---

  Thanks to Randy Perry for translating my text into English.

  ---

  
  [1] e.g. Willibald Sauerländer: Der Kunsthistoriker angesichts des entlaufenen Kunstbegriffs. Zerfällt das Paradigma einer Disziplin? In: Jahrbuch des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte I. 1985. P. 375-399; Heinrich Klotz: Anfang der Kunstgeschichte? Ein Fach noch immer auf der Suche nach sich selbst. In: Kunst ohne Geschichte? Ansichten zu Kunst und Kunstgeschichte. Ed. Anne-Marie Bonnet, Gabriele Kopp-Schmidt. München 1995.
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Biblographic data formatted for downloading

Author1:               Panofsky, Erwin
Author2:               Wuttke, Dieter (ed.)
Author3:               
Author4:               
Author5:               
Author5:               
main Title:            Korrespondenz 1910 - 1936
subtitle:              
edition:               
series:                Korrespondenz 1910 bis 1968 : eine kommentierte Auswahl in fünf Bänden ; 1
place of publ.:        Wiesbaden
publisher:             Harrassowitz
year:                  2001
no of pages etc.:      LIV, 1142 p. : Ill.
ISBN:                  3-447-04448-9
currency:              DEM
price:                 360 (298 for subscribers)
aprox. price in EUR:   185 (150 for subscribers)

[Homepage GGREN] / [Homepage Fast Reviews]