Early Netherlandish painting, its origins and character

Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 – March 14, 1968) was a German art historian whose work represents a high point in the modern academic study of iconography, including his hugely influential Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art and his seminal Early Netherlandish Painting. Panofsky's ideas were highly influential in intellectual history in general, particularly in his use of historical ideas to interpret artworks and vice versa. Many of his books are still in print, including Studies in Iconology: Humanist Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (1939), Meaning in the Visual Arts (1955), and his 1943 study The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer. His academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime.