''Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character'' is a 1953 book on

art history Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 – March 14, 1968) was a German-Jewish art historian whose work represents a high point in the modern academic study of iconography, including his hugely influential ''Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art ...

, derived from the 1947–48 Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. The book had a wide impact on studies of

Renaissance art Renaissance art (1350 – 1620) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occurr ...

and

Early Netherlandish painting Early Netherlandish painting is the body of work by artists active in the Burgundian Netherlands, Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period, once known as the Flemish Primitives. It flour ...

in particular, but also studies in

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

, art history, and

intellectual history Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualization, conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of ...

in general. The book is particularly well-known for its iconographic treatment of

Van Eyck Van Eyck or Van Eijk () is a Dutch language, Dutch toponymic surname. ''Eijck'', ''Eyck'', ''Eyk'' and ''Eijk'' are all archaic spellings of modern Dutch ("oak") and the surname literally translates as "from/of oak". However, in most cases, the fam ...

's ''

Arnolfini Portrait ''The Arnolfini Portrait'' (or ''The Arnolfini Wedding'', ''The Arnolfini Marriage'', the ''Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife'', or other titles) is an oil painting on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, dated 14 ...

'' as a kind of marriage contract, a hypothesis advanced by Panofsky as early as 1934. The book remains influential despite its reliance on black-and-white reproductions of paintings, which led to some errors of analysis. ''Early Netherlandish Painting'' shares its title with the comprehensive, 14-volume survey by Max J. Friedländer, a fact obliquely acknowledged at the beginning of the preface.''Early Netherlandish Painting'', p. vii

References

Sources

*Holly, Michael Ann. ''Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History.'' Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984 * Nash, Susie.
Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character, 1953
. In: ''The Books that Shaped Art History'', London: Thames & Hudson, 2013 *Panofsky, Erwin. ''Early Netherlandish Painting, Its Origins and Character''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953 **Reprinted in paperback as a

Harper and Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins, based in New York City. Founded in New York in 1817 by James Harper and his brother John, the company operated as J. & J. Harper until 1833, when ...

"Icon Edition," 1971. *Podro, Michael. ''The Critical Historians of Art.'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982

External links

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(free registration required) {{Early Netherlandish painting 1953 non-fiction books Art history books Panofsky Harvard University Press books