>"I have no idea why Smith would assert that Panofsky ignores the religious registers of the works he deals with. ... Perhaps you could elaborate a little more, Mr Miller, on how Smith illustrates the omission in Panofsky (or Riegl)?" (Imago Asthetik)
The only other mention Smith makes of Panofsky is as follows: "This is precisely Panofsky's procedure: in seeking to understand the nature of ancient perspective he begins not by examining specific ancient paintings but rather by citing Aristotle's assertions that it is better to regard cosmic space as limited rather than infinite. On the basis of that one statement Panofsky concludes that only did the ancient painter not develop a one-point focal perspective but he could not have done so, since he did not understand the notion of space as an infinite continuum. Never mind that many ancient philosophers disagreed with Aristotle and thought the universe to be of infinite extent, and that Panovsky didn't trouble to show why either conception of the cosmos should affect the way one sees a street scene, a building, or an interior room (for surely Aristotle's eyes worked in the same way as Alberti's or our own). Panovksy goes on then to characterize the idea of "modern space" in terms of the thinking of Copernicus and Descartes, with special emphasis on the latter's conception of space as res estensa, as something having real being because it could be measured (never mind mind, again, that many of Descartes' contemporaries rejected this notion. Panovsky never retreated from these high levels of intellectual abstraction. As late as 1953, when he published his Early Netherlandish Painting, he saw ft to summarize his 1920's argument without change" Just as, if I recall correctly, some listers have let Alberti or Vasari speak for the artists and patrons of their time -- when they were, indeed, only two opinionated men (neither one of whom were especially remarkable as artists) Does Panovsky "ignore the religious registers of the works he deals with"? I don't know whether Smith would go that far -- but he does assert that Panovsky associated the historical phenomenon of visual perspective with philosophical notions of space rather than with religious and ethical dogma. Do you disagree? ____________________________________________________________ Weight Loss Program Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/c?cp=faokL822QnIUqlKFFfRt-wAAJz6c l_zTaptgNR5c8Mer1v9kAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEUgAAAAA=
