Engineering and the Liberal Arts by Samuel C. Florman (review)

86 Books 268 pp., illus., $7.50. Reviewed by: Eric Gustav Carlson* Following Erwin Panofsky’s death in March 1968, one obituarist noted that Panofsky was ‘the world’s most renowned historian of art’ (Rensselaer W. Lee, Art Journal, XXVII/4, Summer 1968, p. 368). Few scholars in the discipline would dispute this. Consequently, anyone accepting an invitation to review a book by Panofsky does so with trepidation . Idea is not a new book. It was originally published in German in 1924 (‘Idea’, ein Beitrage zur Begriffsgeschichte der alteren Kunsttheorie, Leipzig, Berlin, B. G. Teubner). An Italian translation appeared in 1952 (Idea; contributo alla storia dell’estetica,translated and introduced by Edmondo Cione, Florence, La Nuova Italia) and a second, corrected, German edition was issued in 1960 (Berlin, B. Hessling). The present translation, the first in the language of Panofsky’s adopted country, the United States, is of the second German edition. It is to be hoped that it will not remain the only English language edition of Idea. As the subtitle on the dust jacket states, Idea is ‘a study of the changes in the definition and conception of the term “idea”, from Plato to the 17th century, when the modern definition emerged.’ More specifically, it is an investigation of the vicissitudes undergone by Plato’s idea of the beautiful from Antiquity to the Baroque. Panofsky takes as his point of departure a lecture by Ernst Cassirer, ‘Eidos und Eidolon: Das Problem des Schonen und der Kunst in Platos Dialogen’ (Vortrage der Bibliothek Warburg, IIjl, 1922-23, pp. 1-27). Both Cassirer and Panofsky intended their studies to be connected and both were published under the sponsorship of the Warburg Library. In approaching his subject matter, Panofsky investigates the relationship between philosophies and art historical styles. Since his emphasis is of a philosophical bent, he deals more with theoretical writings than with actual artistic production, more with ideas thanwith objects. Thewritings he analyses are those of philosophers and churchmen Aristotle , St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, for example-as well as those of such theoreticians and artists as Alberti, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Durer. Lengthy selections from the work of three of the men discussed, Ficino, Lomazzo and Bellori, whose writings arelessaccessible,are included in two appendices (translated by Victor A. Velen). Idea is typical of Panofsky’s writing. Within a short essay (Idea is but 126 pages, exclusive of scholarly apparatus) devoted to a specific problem, hemanages to touch ona number of related questions of wider scope. Thus, Panofsky makes provocative remarks about such broader questions as the changing role of art and the artist in society, the relationship between art, the artist and nature, and the discrepancies that sometimes appear between artistic theory and production. Mass., U.S.A. * Fine Arts Department, Harvard University, Cambridge, As a document of Panofsky’s early career, Idea presents some interesting aspects. In his later work, Panofsky was to study in greater depth several subjects which he had dealt with in Idea. One example of this is his Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism (Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Archabbey Press, 1951) which expands ideas presented in Chapter 3 of Idea. Methodologically, too, Idea hints at the future course of Panofsky’s work. In Idea, questioning the connection between styles and thoughts, Panofsky is close to Max Dvoi6k and those who investigate the history of art as the history of ideas. In Panofsky’s later work, this type of analysis isonly one aspect of a three part approach toaworkofart. This latter method,called Iconology, was not fully formulated by Panofsky until 1939 (Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art o f the Renaissance, New York, Oxford University Press). It remains his most important contribution to art historical research. Presumably the translator’s purpose was to make Idea available to a wider public. Yet the appeal of Idea is largely scholarly, to persons who should be able to use the German edition. As a relatively youthful work in Panofsky’s career, many of the ideas presented in the book are better presented elsewhere, often in Panofsky’s later English publications . Panofsky himself, in the forward to the 1960edition of Idea, warns: ‘. . , the reader of the work reprinted...