MICROSTORY OF ART ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM Panofsky Meets Morelli

It is letter number 3248 within the large body of the correspondence of art historian Erwin Panofsky: the latter addressing the issue of the Morellian method, when writing, on February 7 of 1966, to George W. Corner (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Corner), president of the American Philosophical Society, and when giving his opinion on an essay that was to appear within the Proceedings of that society, an essay by Herbert Friedmann (http://vertebrates.si.edu/birds/Hall_of_fame/InMemoriamPDFs/Friedmann.pdf) entitled The Significance of the Unimportant in Studies of Nature and of Art (see: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/985687?uid=3737760&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21104988418373).
Now, is this a letter by Panofsky showing how far these worlds of Scientific Connoisseurship, respectively Iconology were apart? – Not exactly, but it strikes me as a document worth studying and also worth commenting upon (source: Dieter Wuttke (ed.), Erwin Panofsky, Korrespondenz 1910 bis 1968. Eine kommentierte Auswahl in fünf Bänden, volume V (Korrespondenz 1962 bis 1968, Wiesbaden 2011, pp. 785-788; bg picture above: verblonshen.org; commentary below by me).

Dear Dr. Corner:
Many thanks for your note of February 3rd and Dr. Friedmann’s manuscript which I herewith return.
I have read it with interest, some amusement and partial agreement. He is certainly right in pointing out an analogy between the procedures of the history of art, insofar as questions of classification (that is, attribution) are concerned, and those branches of the natural sciences which may be called observational; for all these are based on diagnosis »subject to experimental confirmation«. But it seems to be a little arbitrary to single out taxonomic zoology in preference to, for example, botany or medicine. And my main objection is the conclusion according to which Morellian details are more important for art-historical attributions than the more general and, in my opinion, essential characteristics the sum total of which we designate as »style«. Artistic productions differ, after all, from the products of nature in that they reflect the personal attitudes of an individual mind, and I see no reason why these, though very difficult to describe in words, should be less evident in the process of making an attribution than those details which are habits of the hand rather than habits of the mind. It is quite true that an artist called upon to portray an individual is – or was – committed to conscious observation of details which he would render more or less automatically in »free compositions«. But that does not mean that the former are harder to attribute than the latter. Portraits, too, reveal the personality of the artist no less clearly than do »free compositions«; this is in fact so obvious that many great minds were struck by the fact that even portraits often show a kind of physiognomical similarity with their makers. Leonardo da Vinci has a remark to the effect that painters tend to assimilate their figures to their own appearance – a phenomenon for which he accounts by the Platonizing theory that the soul, having selected its own body at birth, is likely to make a similar choice when confronted with other persons; and Kant seriously complained that a Jewish engraver named Lips (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_Lips) had endowed him, Kant, with Jewish characteristics, when portraying him.
In short, I wonder whether Mr. Friedmann’s amusing analysis actually necessitates the conclusion that the »Unimportant« is a safer guide in the judgments on works of art than the »Important«.
My reaction to the article, then, is one of »relative approval«, to quote your own phrase.
Sincerely yours, Erwin Panofsky

* * *

Analogy: The Morellian circle was very aware of that general analogy too, but, similar to Panofsky, never did exclusively prefer a particular branch of the natural sciences to make comparisons with art history or to ever point or spell that analogy actually out. And if one thing is certain is that Morelli himself never did that. At least not in writing. His main field of study in his youth had been comparative anatomy and thus he had been concerned with the anatomy of animals and human anatomy. The parallel between the Morellian method and a (or the) botanical method one does occasionally encounter in writings of the Morellian circle. And if in a good mood Morelli loved also to draw comparisons between his doing and medicine (recalling indirectly his years of searching in his youth that resulted, however, in giving up practical medicine immediately, and comparative anatomy some time later), but not on a level of actual methodological reflection but rather on a rhetorical level. Nevertheless one cannot help the impression that natural history, secretly, remained something of a model if Morelli was thinking of a future science of art, based on accurate classifications (attributions). Still, in his rather secretive and cautious nature, Morelli never went as far as actually to propagate such a future undertaking, but had his followers (or his critics) draw their own conclusions as to the future potential of Morellian ideas. And in that Morelli remained a (sceptical) observer – of his own circle, and of the inspiring effects that his ideas caused among his followers and critics.

Morellian details… more general… essential characteristics: Panofsky is running into danger here of assuming that Morelli worked with Morellian details exclusively, which Panofsky (also wrongfully) seems to equal with ›habits of the hand‹. – One has to remind that a) shapes of hands and ears (the probably most famous class of Morellian details) were, in Morelli’s eyes, not at all habits of the hand, but, actually, habits of the mind, in that they were expressions of the artist’s mind wherein inner notions of anatomy had developed that the artist was externalizing in painting, thus expressing his mind. And one has to remind that b) as habits of the hand Morelli regarded other details for which he had the class designation of Angewöhnungen which can be understood and translated as habits of the hand, because here Morelli was thinking of the rather mechanical reproducing of signature elements, similar to the flourishes of a handwriting. And this class was not thought of being ›expression of the artist’s mind‹ but the result of chance (Zufall).
However it is not at all easy to know exactly when Morelli, if he is working with detail, is thinking of expressions of the mind, respectively of habits of the hand, whereas his theoretical thinking does not change over the years.
I think it most important to say also that Morelli would not at all have contradicted Panofsky when the latter is pointing to more essential characteristics and to style as such: because the Morellian method was meant to be used as a tool, especially if it was felt that the working with more general and essential characteristics did not result in a higher level of certainty as to the determining of authorship. And the test for Morellian detail was not meant, although a mainstream line of interpretation still seems to assume that this is the case, to replace the working with any more essential stylistic characteristics, but to shift the attention, for instrumental reasons, to another level, i.e. to the margins of a stylistic paradigm, where, possibly, clues were to be found that might offer to built a reasoning as to authorship upon a (relatively) firm or more firm footing. What Panofsky seems to recommend, with all due respect, was taken for granted by Morelli, and taking for granted means here also that he does more or less spare to speak about it explicitly. In sum: the working with more general characteristics had already been done – it had already happened or was still happening – if it was thought at all to apply Morellian tests (check for example in what way Morelli is dismissing the Reading Magdalen at Dresden, allegedly by Correggio, because this is the classic showcase of a more comprehensive understanding of Morelli’s actual method, since here Morelli is showing more of what he actually did than usual; beginning with a reasoning upon essential features; and it bears repeating to say that tradition has reduced the picture of the Morellian method to a caricature of what it actually was, in spite of the existence of such a public showcase).

Physiognomical similarity with their makers: It is paradox that, if speaking of the phenomenon of automimesis, Panofsky is simpatico, i.e. on the same wavelenght with Morelli again, because the latter argued that even in portrait, painters were externalizing inner notions of anatomy (and he is giving a list of such portraits), thus expressing their own mind, despite their being committed to portrait-likeness. Morelli knew the Leonardo remark as well, and occasionally referred to it, since he felt that this theory of automimesis could back up his more general thoughts (that he, however, never worked out as a system).

Finally: Check out also the printed edition for the general comment by Dieter Wuttke; and see for a discussion of how Sherlock Holmes is solving the case of the Hound of the Baskervilles by using ›judgment by eye‹ now: http://www.seybold.ch/Dietrich/DiscoveringTheEyeOfSherlockHolmes)

MICROSTORY OF ART ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM Panofsky Meets Morelli

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