Erwin Panofsky

The field of art history has a long tradition at the Institute for Advanced Study, beginning in 1935 with the appointment to the Faculty of the renowned German art historian Erwin Panofsky. His interests ranged across the spectrum from European Medieval and Renaissance art, to literature, to motion pictures, but he is most closely associated with the development of the field of iconology. He described himself as a humanist, which he defined as somebody who rejects authority but respects tradition.