Practice question · Select all that apply
Which are among Gombrich's proposed restraints on iconological interpretation?
Hints
- Three are his restraints; one abandons the level he was trying to discipline.
- He wanted iconology done rigorously, not dropped.
Show the answer
- A. Give documentary evidence where it survives, and note where it does not
- C. Treat readings requiring esoteric doctrine as needing strong evidence
- D. Establish the genre and what the image was commissioned to do
Why
The fourth is what he explicitly did not propose. Gombrich wanted the third level performed with discipline — genre, documents, and scepticism about esoteric readings — rather than abandoned, which is a demand for rigour rather than a retreat to safer ground.
Practise Critiques and Revisions of the Method
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Art History I is free to start.
More questions on Critiques and Revisions of the Method
- Gombrich argued that iconology is insufficiently constrained. Why does that objection bite?
- Sort each question by the movement that brought it into the discipline.
- Iconology is often revised rather than replaced by later critical frameworks. Why must a revisionist analysis…
- Pollock argued that adding women to the existing canon is sufficient to correct art history's exclusions.
- Complete the account of the critiques.
- Of Panofsky's three levels, how many have proved most durable under the later critiques?
- Arrange these steps of a disciplined iconological reading in order.
- Gombrich rejected iconology and proposed abandoning the third level.