Erwin Panofsky’s Iconology Concerning His Biography as a German-Jew Scholar

Abstract This article will inspect Erwin Panofsky’s innovations in the field of art history, as they were presented in his 1932 seminal German article. Its goal is to argue that the source for these innovations lies in his biography as a German Jewish scholar during the Weimar years. To do so I will present his innovations, survey his biography in light of his time and that of his peers, and, lastly, dwell on a unique section in his 1932 article – his critique of Martin Heidegger’s aesthetics. As will be seen, this critique is the peak of Panofsky’s conscious actions to stray away from debating his Jewishness in public or to be labeled as one; a path he took due to his biography and that led him to ground his innovations.