by Jon Lackman | 7 May 2009 | Uncategorized
Former Met director Thomas Hoving is publishing a memoir serially on Artnet:
Despite my successes, I found that first year [of graduate school] to be exceedingly boring and unfulfilling. I was especially annoyed that all I ever looked at were photographs of originals. No one suggested field trips to the great museums in New York or Philadelphia. And I was particularly vexed with a stray comment the ruling star of art history had muttered in a seminar. The star was Erwin Panofsky … “Pan” had hefted into the seminar room what was called an “Elephant Folio,” a rare book over three-and-a-half-feet tall, with original [Raimondi] engravings.
Towards the end of the session, “Pan” slammed shut the pages of the priceless folio and turned away. I smelled something burning and noticed that the cigarette formerly in the professor’s mouth was gone. I opened the rare folio and extracted a glowing cigarette stub and said nothing about the charred section of the priceless engraving.
It was at the same seminar that Panofsky gave his opinion about original art that so vexed me, “Damn the originals. You can learn so much more about iconography from black and white photographs.”
lol, wow. I never knew Erwin Panofsky was such a jerk.
Panofsky aside, a prudent reader might think twice before taking anything that escapes from Thomas Hoving’s mouth at face value.