Resumen de (Un)richtige Aufnahme: renaissance sculpture and the visual historiography of art history
In three ground-breaking articles published in 1896�97 and 1915, which focused primarily on Italian Renaissance sculpture, Heinrich Wölfflin asked: �How should one photograph sculpture?� In trying to answer this question, he became one of the first scholars to consider explicitly the �visual historiography� of art history as a discipline. Following Wölfflin's lead, this essay uses the photographic and, briefly, pre-photographic reproduction of Renaissance sculpture to explore how such images have both reflected and shaped art-historical approaches, from Winckelmann's illustrated surveys, Wölfflin's and Malraux's formalism, Berenson's connoisseurship, Janson's monographic interests and Panofsky's iconology, to more recent socio-historical studies and digital applications. By doing so, this essay hopes to serve as a prolegomenon for further research on the �visual historiography� of art objects made in many other periods, places and media.
