Erwin Panofsky’s methodological innovation in the field of iconology redefined how artworks are interpreted, moving from mere description toward an inquiry into meaning shaped by historical consciousness, and his three-tiered model of analysis—formulated in Studies in Iconology (1939)—remains foundational to art historical methodology; beginning with the pre-iconographic level, the viewer identifies basic visual elements such as forms, gestures, or scenes without needing specialised knowledge, as in Da Vinci’s Last Supper, where one recognises a group of men seated at a table, with no immediate cultural framing, while the iconographic level introduces interpretative knowledge drawn from shared cultural conventions, allowing one to recognise the scene as Christ’s final meal with his apostles, and thus discern its symbolic content, yet it is only at the iconological level that deeper, contextual meaning emerges, revealing how the work reflects and constructs broader worldviews, ideologies and historical tensions, pushing the viewer to ask not only what is shown but why it was shown in that specific form at that specific time; this final layer requires a synthesis of visual observation, cultural literacy and philosophical inquiry, positioning the artwork as both a product and producer of meaning, and in this way, Panofsky extends Aby Warburg’s initial insights into the psychology of images by embedding iconology in a broader intellectual history, where the artwork becomes a coded text to be deciphered within its epistemological framework, affirming that the study of symbols in art is inseparable from the social structures and metaphysical questions of its era.
