The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (355 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists
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Panini
(or Pannini ), Giovanni Paolo (or Gianpaolo)
(1691/2–1765).
Italian painter, born in Piacenza and trained in the school of stage designers at Bologna, possibly under one of the
Bibiena
family. By 1711 he was in Rome, where he became the pre-eminent painter of real and imaginary views of the city. He was the first painter to make a special feature of ruins—an aspect of his work which links him with Hubert
Robert
and
Piranesi
—and also did paintings of public festivities and events of historical importance. Panini taught
perspective
at the French Academy in Rome and his influence was strong with French as well as Italian artists. He was a prolific painter and many galleries have examples of his work.
Panofsky , Erwin
(1892–1968).
German-American art historian, a professor at Hamburg University 1926–33, until dismissed by the Nazis. He settled in the USA, where he had been a visiting professor at New York since 1931, and was then visiting professor at Princeton University, 1934–5, and from 1935 professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Kenneth
Clark
described him as ‘unquestionably the greatest art historian of his time’, and he is renowned particularly for his immensely learned contributions to the study of
iconography
. His many books include
Studies in Iconology
(1939),
Albrecht Dürer
(1943),
Early Netherlandish Painting
(1953), and
Tomb Sculpture
(1964). Panofsky enjoyed teaching and was influential through his work in the classroom and lecture hall as well as through his writings. Many scholars have tried to emulate his way of analysing works of art as part of a broad philosophical, intellectual, and cultural pattern, but few have rivalled his learning or finesse, and some of his followers have been accused of ‘over-interpreting’ pictures in their desire to uncover ‘hidden symbolism’.
panorama
.
‘A picture of a landscape or other scene, either arranged on the inside of a cylindrical surface round the spectator as a centre (a
cyclorama
), or unrolled or unfolded and made to pass before him, so as to show the various parts in succession’ (
OED
). In 1787 a patent for such a device was granted to Robert Barker (1739–1806), an Irish-born painter working in Edinburgh, and it soon became a popular form of entertainment: ‘Panorama painting seems all the rage’,
Constable
wrote in 1803. Panoramas were indeed a kind of forerunner of the popular cinema and tended to be remarkable for sheer spectacle rather than artistic merit. Distinguished artists were sometimes associated with them, however; notably
Girtin
, who made a panorama of London, now lost, and
Mesdag
, whose panorama of Scheveningen can still be seen in The Hague. In more general parlance, the term ‘panorama’ is used of any wide, uninterrupted view over a scene, particularly a landscape.
pantograph
.
An instrument, known since the 17th cent., for copying a drawing on a larger or smaller scale. By a simple system of levers the outline of the original work traced with a point attached to one arm can be repeated on to another surface by a drawing instrument that is attached to another arm.
Paolozzi , Sir Eduardo
(1924– ).
British sculptor and printmaker of Italian parentage. He had his first one-man exhibition as a sculptor in 1947 and in the same year he began making
collages
using cuttings from American magazines, etc. (
I was a Rich Man's Plaything
, Tate, London, 1947). Paolozzi regarded these collages as ‘readymade metaphors’ representing the popular dreams of the masses, and they have been seen as forerunners of
Pop art
(he eventually amassed a large collection of pulp literature, art, and artefacts, which he presented to the University of St Andrews). From the 1950s he has worked primarily as an abstract sculptor, often on a large scale. His work of the 1950s was characteristically heavy and bulky, often incorporating industrial components, showing his interest in technology as well as in popular culture. In the 1960s his work became more colourful, including large totem-like figures made up from casts of pieces of machinery and often brightly painted. In the 1970s he made solemn machine-like forms and also box-like low
reliefs
, both small and large, in wood or bronze, sometimes made to hang on the wall, compartmented and filled with small carved items. His more recent work has included several large public commissions, for example mosaic decorations for Tottenham Court Road underground station in London (installed 1983–5). Paolozzi has taught at various art schools and universities in Britain, Europe, and the USA, and he has been awarded many honours. See also
INDEPENDENT GROUP
.

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