Rebueno, Prichelle S.

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REFLECTION PAPER: ART AS HUMANISTIC DISCIPLINE
Erwin Panofsky wrote this essay to point out the view of humanity. In the first section, he
included here the story of Immanuel Kant which gives a clear understanding of this concept. Kant
showed the true meaning of dignity and respect as what he acted towards his physician. He treated
him right not because of his status as his physician but because of being himself, being him as a
human being. Kant also said that mortality is bigger other than with the efforts of others to help
him cure with his illness. The first part of the essay is all about the concept of humanity which has
two distinguishable meanings. The first one is a man and what is less than man wherein humanitas
means value, and the other one is a man and what is more than man wherein humanitas means
limitation. These two meanings signify the true concept of humanism and Panofsky defined it as
maintaining the rationality and freedom while still keeping in mind the person’s unreliable actions
or their limitations. As part of earth’s existence, the importance of values and limitations should
be focus by every individual. Without understanding this concept, people will not be able to
achieve the humanity that everyone should develop.
In the second part, it states here the rising of humanism in Middle Ages where they
developed the heritage of the past including the classical works of Aristotle and Ovid. As what
Panofsky said “For, if human existence could be thought of as a means rather than an end, how
much less could the records of human activity be considered as values in themselves”. The people
in Middle Ages proved that humanity is important for they reflect and prosper the quality records
of the past. On the other hand, there are two distinctions that are made: the culture and natural
science. In culture, it talks about the relationship between the general historical concept or the
traditions in humanities while in science it’s about the phenomena and theories in nature. However,
in humanistic view, the cosmos of science and culture are assured to be connected to each other
and the author said, “what is true of the relationship between monuments, documents and a general
historical concept in the humanities is evidently equally true of the relationship between
phenomena, instruments and theory in the natural sciences.”
The third part is about the humanist method. In this section, the work of art clearly defined
that has always aesthetically significance whether its purpose is good or bad. Meanwhile, those
man-made objects that doesn’t experienced aesthetically, it is called practical. In the method of
interpretation, the purpose of humanist and scientist are two different things. For scientist, they
analyze an idea and can just actually interpret what states in the book while humanist re-create
mentally and should understand deeply what the message is trying to convey. In a contrasting
approach, interpretation reflects own attitude where people are dependent to their experience and
historical situation.
Finally, in the last part, Panofsky asked why art history should be part of humanity and the
answer is basically how people are interested in the reality. In understanding the term, it is not just
about ourselves but also about the culture and nature. We, as part of earth’s existence, we should
be interested in the heritage of the past because reality always makes sense to us. By that, it is
understood as an interpretation of world in terms of thought and actions.