Figural Philology

Adi Efal is Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Cologne, Germany.

Efal’s is a fresh new voice working at the intersection of art history and philosophy, and it is therefore no surprise that she has written such an exciting, distinctive and innovative book. I mean only the highest praise when I say that there is nothing quite like it on the market at the moment.

• Acknowledgements1 Philological rationality and the constitution of the history of art 2 Archimedean points: monuments as duration reservoirs Panofsky's Riegl Philological imperatives in Riegl's methods The curse and the blessing in the study of artworks Art history as Korrektur of monuments Riegl's Alterswert Kunstwollen and meaning Philological reproduction of past realities 3 Forms and figures: two fundamental modes of pictorial productionForms and figures within the pictorial domain Figuration in the history of art The figural situation Figuration and meaning Forms and figures From the plastic to the pictorial 4 Pictorial validities in art and history Panofsky's Idea and the disclosure of the iconoclastic structure Ideas between truth and reality in Idea Auerbach's 'Figura': plasticity and history ?Real and historical': the figural mechanics of validation Reality, value and truth: two versions of realist argumentation Iconophilic method 5 Sub figuralitate historiæ The figure and the reality of the past Figural and historical meaning 6 Iconological space: Panofsky with Warburg Panofsky's historical space-time Simmel's historical time Warburg's art history and philology Warburg's philological gaze Vitalisms and archaism Iconology and philology 7 The figural synthesis of historical reality in the iconology table Synthesis Symbols, ideas and values From symbolic value to synthetic intuition Intuition and synthesis Figural synthesis8 Philology’s recollective habitus: Panofsky with Spitzer, Auerbach and Curtius The Aristotelian distinction between memory and recollectionTwo modes of memory The role of figures in recollection Humanism as a recollective activity Hylomorphist humanismFigural distinction: a model for the recollective disjunctionElastic hylomorphism 9 Figural content and the past as a res extensa Iconoclasm, iconism and the reality of the past The past reality of a work versus historical meaning The unseen prototypes of the artwork Vanishing point and carrying surface: spatialities of historical explication Past reality of works and the reality of the pastThe distance between the reality of the past and the historical reality of a work Nonseen and figured Conclusion: towards a figural philology The domain Historical meaning, past reality, historical reality Philological production Figural synthesis Distinctive realism Untemporal history Moderate historicism Panofsky NotesBibliography Index