Forma, „przedmiot dzieła”, Gestalt. Max Imdahl i Erwin Panofsky

Max Imdahl was of the opinion that in the iconological method, Erwin Panofsky had not given due attention to the problem of artistic form. Panofsky indeed failed to recognise the “iconic” level of an artwork; but he sought to justify the inseparability of form and subject matter in order to prove that iconographic research was an inalienable part of art history. This inseparability also characterised iconographic types, defined by the term Gestalt. A strict correspondence of all elements made the correct perception of the work possible, since it triggered the “symbolic pregnancy”, a mode of cognition described by the Gestalt psychology and Ernst Cassirer.