Erwin Panofsky's Perspective as Symbolic Form is one of the
great works of modern intellectual history, the legendary text that
has dominated all art historical and philosophical discussions on
the topic of perspective in this century. Finally available in
English, it is an unrivaled example of Panofsky's early method that
placed him within broader developments in theories of knowledge and
cultural change. Here, drawing on a massive body of learning that
ranges over Antique philosophy, theology, science, and optics as
well as the history of art, Panofsky produces a type of
"archaeology" of Western representation that far surpasses the
usual scope of art historical studies.Perspective in Panofsky's
hands becomes a central component of a Western "will to form," the
expression of a schema linking the social, cognitive,
psychological, and especially technical practices of a given
culture into harmonious and integrated wholes. Yet the perceptual
schema of each historical culture or epoch is different, and each
gives rise to a different but equally full vision of the world.
Panofsky articulates these different spatial systems, demonstrating
their particular coherence and compatibility with the modes of
knowledge, belief, and exchange that characterized the cultures in
which they arose. Our own modernity, Panofsky shows, is
characterized by its peculiarly mathematical expression of the
concept of the infinite, within a space that is necessarily both
continuous and homogeneous.
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