E. Panofsky의 미술사학에 대한 재고찰: K. Moxey의 문화정치학적 입장을 중심으로

Abstract

Panofsky is one of the influential figures in the field of art history. But the nature of his thinking was rarely explored until 1980s when poststructualism has been introduced into art historical discipline. His methodology and theory in art history have attracted considerable attention as he was regarded to provide a methodological system that could be said semiotic. Keith Moxey is one of the new art historians who have adopted the poststructual theories of Derrida, Lacan, and etc., and considered art history as one of the practice of cultural politics. He has examined the writings of Panofsky in order to reveal that the positivist belief of the traditional historians is no more than a myth that can not be substantiated, and to show how Panofsky invested his own personal and cultural values into his interpretation of art works. This thesis was intended to reconsider art history of Panofsky in the light of Moxeys art historical strategy that can be called cultural politics. Panofsky had contrived the methodology called iconology that can be used to interpret the works of art from all of the nations and ages. He thought it could provide the universal principle for treating every artwork properly, and by using it art historians could get to reach the truth about the work. However, according to Moxey, Panofsky was not so neutral in choosing and treating his subjects of analysis that he betrayed his own ideological bias in his writings. Moxey has observed that Panofsky preferred the subjects connected with Renaissance Humanism and made a personal commitment to reason and rationality. Why did Panofsky do that? Moxey has found his answer in Panofskys private history. German Jewish cultural identity was constituted in the beginning of 19th Century when Enlightenment ideals were valued. As a member of German Jews, Panofsky valued rationality and the educational process by which his cultural identity might be acquired. When he left Nazi Germany to the United States before World War II, he should have felt the threat of destruction of humanistic values at the hand of irrational forces. As for Moxey, historical interpretation is not the task of treating truth about past. Traditional historians share positivist position that if they are faithful to empirical evidence they can reach the truth of the subjects. Nowadays, however, many historians dont believe that objectivity of historical writing is attainable. They dont think they can elaborate narratives that correspond perfectly with the circumstances they purport to describe. Like White and LaCapra, Moxey regards as a metaphysical fiction the epistemological foundation which traditional historians have been maintaining in historical interpretations. He believes historians do not deal with what might be called the raw facts of history. Instead, he argues, historians understanding of the past is always mediated by the texts. According to his opinion, historical interpretation is recreative dialogues between the historian and the text in question. That is to say, a historian interprets the text on his own historical horizon and inevitably reflects the values derived from his own historical circumstances while he struggles to understand the strangeness and othernessof the historical horizon of the text.