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History of Art, Reason 121its center, where its envelope; where are its specific regions, its exactlimits? 97 On the other hand, is signification the only parameter towhich we might reference the content of a work of art, if this notionmeans anything? Is signification all that works of art contain? Is itreally unreasonable to imagine a history of art whose object wouldbe the sphere of all the not-meanings in images? Beyond subject matteror the iconographic ‘‘subject,’’ Panofsky’s iconological meaning hadother ambitions: it was supposed to constitute the definitive instanceof a place that did not content itself with enclosing the significationscarried by works of art but that, in addition, aimed to engender them—‘‘give meaning even to the formal arrangements and technical proceduresemployed’’ in any work of painting, sculpture, or architecture. 98In short, the ideational content is essential (‘‘it is essential’’) by oppositionto appearance, and intrinsic (‘‘intrinsic meaning’’) as opposed toconventional. It corresponds to a concept from which the work couldbe deduced, just as any superstructure is deducible from the ‘‘basicprinciples which underlie the choice and presentation’’ of the workitself, considered as an expressive phenomenon. 99How can knowledge henceforth attain such a principle? Answer:by using the magic bow offered by Apollo to the humanist art historian—thebow of synthesis and analysis combined, mutually confirming,metasynthesized. It is at this precise point of his hypothesis thatPanofsky forcefully reintroduces ‘‘the rather discredited term syntheticintuition,’’ a term that basically aims at something like a transcendentalsynthesis: iconology, in effect, requires ‘‘a method of interpretationwhich arises as a synthesis rather than as an analysis,’’ and is premisedon ‘‘the correct analysis of images, stories, and allegories.’’ 100 In otherwords, the iconological essence of an image is deduced simultaneouslyfrom a rational analysis carried out only on the iconographiclevel, and an ‘‘intuitive’’ synthesis based on ‘‘a familiarity with specificthemes or concepts as transmitted through literary sources.’’ Panofskywill go even farther, not to be more precise but on the contrary tobroaden: ‘‘just so, or even more so, has our synthetic intuition to becontrolled by an insight into the manner in which, under varyinghistorical conditions, the general and essential tendencies of the humanmind were expressed by specific themes and concepts.’’ 101