The art historian subjects his “material” to a rational archaeological analysis at times as meticulously exact, comprehensive and involved as any physical or astronomical research. But he constitutes his “material” by means of an intuitive aesthetic re-creation, including the perception and appraisal of “quality,” just as any “ordinary” person does when he or she looks at a picture.

Erwin Panofsky  |  1940

Identity is not only a story, a narrative which we tell ourselves about ourselves, it is stories which change with historical circumstances. And identity shifts with the way in which we think and hear them and experience them. Far from only coming from the still small point of truth inside us, identities actually come from outside, they are the way in which we are recognized and then come to step into the place of the recognitions which others give us. Without the others there is no self, there is no self-recognition.

Stuart Hall  |  1995