Gothic Architecture and Scholastic Philosophy?

Like Hegel, then, Schapiro certainly believed that art revealed the spirit of the time, but not in a way determinable for all times.  Rather, the relationship between art and society, while relevant to the question of stylistic change at any time, takes different forms at different times.  The visual arts may often contain or reflect philosophical ideas, but to show in any case how this is so requires a very detailed account of both the philosophy and the art in question.  For example, Schapiro criticized Panofsky’s claim that Gothic architecture was strongly shaped by its way of encoding elements of Scholastic philosophy.[1]  Panofsky, he said, had relied upon Thomistic dialectic in a way that strained the available evidence.

---

[1]. See Erwin Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism (1957) and Schapiro’s criticism in Cynthia L. Persinger, The Politics of Style: Meyer Schapiro and the Crisis of Meaning in Art History (ProQuest, 2007) pp. 188-9 http://search.proquest.com/docview/304822071