Early Netherlandish Painting: From Rogier Van Der Weyden to Gerard David

by Otto Pächt

German

264 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1994

Reviews

[Noé Hernández · Rating 3 out of 5]

The usefulness of formalism as a methodology is essentially commercial; it is not critical for the knowledge of Art History to trace a stylistic trajectory, except perhaps for dating imprecisely and associating works with guild groups. Moreover, formalism is a somewhat unreliable methodology: Pächt’s text is no longer entirely accurate in the attribution or dating of certain works. Rather, it is precisely in the parts where he analyzes the content of the works themselves (which is very infrequent) that his research holds great validity and relevance today.