A new study in migration: Erwin Panofsky and 'the history of art as a humanistic discipline' in the United States of America

Keenan, Daniel (2007) A new study in migration: Erwin Panofsky and 'the history of art as a humanistic discipline' in the United States of America. MPhil(R) thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Focusing on the life and work of Erwin Panofsky this thesis reassess the effects of migration on German-speaking art historians in America after 1933, and the subsequent establishment of the discipline in the Anglophone world. Section one examines the recent historiography of art history concerning this intellectual migration, demonstrating how recent critical trends have created a certain miscomprehension between the 'German' and 'American' periods in the discipline's history. Section two identifies Panofsky's career in Germany and America as a valuable point of reference in the explication of this model. This section then concludes by highlighting the need for a re-examination of the development of both Panofsky's scholarship and the discipline as a whole following the migration. Sections three to five utilise the recent publication of Panofsky's correspondence, and the insights these letters reveal, to re-evaluate the art historian's initial experiences in the United States. Section three begins by examining the differences between the German and American academic environments and Panofsky's early attempts to transplant something of his native tradition of Kunstwissenschaft. Section four looks at the difficulties emigre scholars faced in America and how Panofsky's awareness of the need for a process of mutual acculturation enabled him to be a success. Section five then concludes by providing a re-evaluation of the scholar's reaction and response to the alterity of his new environment; showing that privately at least, Panofsky had misgivings about the success of his attempted transplantation.

• Item Type: Thesis (MPhil(R))
• Qualification Level: Masters
• Keywords: Art history
• Subjects: N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > History of Art
• Supervisor's Name: Supervisor, not known
• Date of Award: 2007
• Depositing User: Enlighten Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2007-71115
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 10 May 2019 10:49
• Last Modified: 20 May 2021 19:11
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/71115