Quote:And personally I agree with Panofsky: the VMS looks provincial, rather than related with major Renaissance centers

Quote:While Panofsky was a towering figure in art history, specific interpretations he made have been contested or revised by later scholars. Rather than making simple factual mistakes, his specific readings of individual artworks often drew criticism for being overly speculative or constrained by his own theoretical frameworks.
Examples of areas where his interpretations faced pushback include:

• Over-Reading Symbolism: Scholars have argued that Panofsky occasionally saw complex literary, philosophical, or theological symbols in details that artists may have simply included for decorative or compositional reasons. This tendency to treat every minor element as an intellectual puzzle led some critics to accuse him of "over-interpreting."
  
• Perspectives on Renaissance Space: In his influential work on perspective as a "symbolic form," Panofsky argued that linear perspective was a systematic discovery of the Renaissance. Later art historians and theorists (such as Daniel Arasse) challenged these readings, showing that artists frequently bent or broke the rules of perspective intentionally for emotional or theological reasons, rather than failing at it or strictly adhering to a unified worldview.
  
• Rigid Categorization of Historical Eras: His distinctions between periods—such as his strict rules about how classical motifs were used and transformed during the Middle Ages versus the Renaissance—have sometimes been viewed as too rigid. Later historians have pointed out that cultural exchange and artistic revivals were much more fluid and messy than his structural boundaries suggested
  

Quote:However, since the style of the drawings is fairly provincial, a somewhat later date, even the first years of the sixteenth century, would not seem to be excluded. I should not go lower than ca. 1510-1520 because no influence of the Italian Renaissance style is evident.