Art Historical Method: Formal Analysis, Iconography and Context
This domain is the toolkit for every other question. The exam tests whether you can describe before interpreting, use terminology correctly, apply Panofsky's levels of meaning, and move from formal evidence to contextual argument without guessing.
Formal analysis
- Use a fixed order: medium, format, scale, composition, line, shape, colour, value, texture, space, light, proportion, balance, rhythm, focal point.
- State light direction and source; say whether space is shallow or deep and how depth is constructed.
- Describe relationships, not inventories: what the diagonal does, where the eye is sent, what is contrasted with what.
Iconography and iconology
- Panofsky's three levels: pre-iconographic description (what is visible), iconographic analysis (identifying subject through attributes), iconological interpretation (cultural meaning).
- Attributes identify figures: keys for Peter, wheel for Catherine, lily for Joseph, tetramorph for the Evangelists.
- Distinguish attribute from symbol: the attribute identifies, the symbol carries meaning.
Context and terminology
- Ask: who commissioned it, for what site, for which viewer, in what medium, and what happened to it afterwards (copies, restorations, relocations).
- Precise terms exist for a reason: contrapposto, foreshortening, tenebrism, sfumato, impasto, quadratura, readymade, montage, collage, register, mandorla, tympanum.
- Comparative questions demand shared criteria: compare function, then form, then meaning.
- Key sources: Vasari (1550), Winckelmann (1764), Wölfflin's principles, Panofsky, Gombrich. Use them as positions, not as facts.
Worked example. A commentary question shows a Manet bar scene. Reasoning sequence: identify and date first; then describe - mirror behind the barmaid, shifted reflection, still lifes of bottles, flat areas of paint, the customer's gaze; then analyse - the mirror refuses coherent space, the barmaid's detachment; then iconography - the modern city, consumption, spectacle; then context - 1882, Haussmann's Paris, the Folies-Bergère; finally evaluate. Each stage cites visible evidence.
Traps. Description with no argument; jargon used without definition; beautiful as a substitute for evidence; guessing an attribution with no formal justification; ignoring the exact instruction (analyse versus compare versus identify); using anachronistic concepts such as genius or originality as if unproblematic.