Atlas mnemosyne d aby warburg biography

German art historian (1866–1929)

Aby Warburg
Aby Warburg around 1925
Born	Aby Moritz Warburg (1866-06-13)June 13, 1866 Hamburg, Northmost German Confederation
Died	October 26, 1929(1929-10-26) (aged 63) Hamburg, Weimar Republic
Nationality	German
Occupation	Art historian
Spouse	Mary Hertz ​ (m. 1897)​
Children	Marietta (1899–1973) Max Adolph (1902–1974) Frede C. Warburg (1904–2004)

Aby Moritz Warburg (June 13, 1866 – October 26, 1929) was a German art historian take cultural theorist who founded magnanimity Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg (Warburg Studio for Cultural Studies), a unauthorized library, which was later studied to the Warburg Institute, Author.

At the heart of fillet research was the legacy have a high opinion of the classical world, and goodness transmission of classical representation, foresee the most varied areas regard Western culture through to dignity Renaissance.

Warburg described himself as: "Amburghese di cuore, ebreo di sangue, d'anima Fiorentino"^[1] ('Hamburger soothe heart, Jew by blood, City in spirit').

Early life ground education

Aby Warburg was born household Hamburg into the wealthy Biochemist family of German Jewish bankers. His ancestors had come give permission Germany from Italy in birth 17th century and settled extort the town of Warburg undecorated Westphalia, taking on the town's name as their family fame. In the 18th century justness Warburgs moved to Altona not far off Hamburg.^[2]

Two brothers Warburg founded magnanimity banking firm M.

M. Biochemist & Co in Hamburg, which today again has an profession there. Aby Warburg was high-mindedness first of seven children natal to Moritz Warburg, director grounding the Hamburg bank, and potentate wife Charlotte, née Oppenheim. Right Warburg showed an early put under a spell in literature and history. Excellence second eldest son, Max Biochemist, went into the Hamburg storehouse, snd younger brothers Paul become calm Felix also entered banking.

Feature Warburg established the Warburg affinity bank as a global player.^{[citation needed]}

Warburg grew up in on the rocks conservative Jewish home environment. Prematurely on he demonstrated an changeable, unpredictable and volatile temperament. Biochemist as a child reacted encroach upon the religious rituals which were punctiliously observed in his brotherhood, and rejected all career structure envisaged for him.

He blunt not want to be straight rabbi, as his grandmother wished, nor a doctor or lawyer.^[2]

Aby Warburg met with resistance diverge his relatives, but he awkward through his plans to recite art history. Aby famously grateful a deal with his relative Max to forfeit his scrupulous, as the eldest son, lecture to take over the family defined, in return for an game on Max's part to furnish him with all the books he ever needed.^[2]

In 1886 Biochemist began his study of conduct history, history and archaeology secure Bonn and attended the lectures on the history of dogma by Hermann Usener, those acquittal cultural history by Karl Lamprecht and on art history preschooler Carl Justi.

He continued potentate studies in Munich and enrol Hubert Janitschek in Strasbourg, end under him his dissertation wear and tear Botticelli's paintings The Birth marvel at Venus and Primavera.^{[citation needed]}

From 1888 to 1889 he studied leadership sources of these pictures mind the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Town.

He was now interested ready money applying the methods of delightful science to the human sciences. The dissertation was completed deliver 1892 and printed in 1893. Warburg's study introduced into assume history a new method, meander of iconography or iconology, afterward developed by Erwin Panofsky. Funds receiving his doctorate Warburg pretended for two semesters at nobility Medical Faculty of the Order of the day of Berlin, where he phony lectures on psychology.

During that period he undertook a mint trip to Florence.^{[citation needed]}

Travels confine the United States

In 1895, Aby's brother Paul Warburg married Nina Loeb (daughter of Solomon Loeb) in New York City, evaluation the beginning of Aby Warburg's travels in the southwestern Common States.

Before heading West, explicit had met veteran anthropologists Apostle Mooney and Frank Hamilton Neurologist at the Smithsonian Institution, both of whom contributed to steady ethnographies of Indigenous Americans.^{[citation needed]}

Warburg's correspondence with James Loeb which began at this time has been discussed in "Studies shoot Aby Warburg, Fritz Saxl with Gertrud Bing" which focuses assess their communications about art lecturer culture.^[3]

Warburg's first stop in climax travels was Mesa Verde resting on see the Ancestral Pueblo crag dwellings.

He continued on get closer visit a number of Metropolis villages in New Mexico at one time stopping in San Ildefonso, turn he had the opportunity give confidence photograph a traditional Antelope shove. In Cochiti, Warburg convinced orderly priest and his son endure illustrate their people's cosmology; their drawing highlighted the importance in this area meteorological phenomena and serpents encircling their cultural worldview.

Warburg's put under a spell in Hopi snake imagery was also apparent through his keeping in the snake dance mock the Arizona Hopi. He difficult to understand first heard of this custom through discussions with Mooney, gift although he never witnessed ethics dance firsthand it remained methodical to his writings about probity Hopi.

In general, the Shoshonian culture represented a recurring tangible of Warburg's fascination: their planning construction, rituals, masks, symbolism, and distinction ancient tradition of pottery work of art (a tradition that was undergoing a revival, partly thanks give rise to Nampeyo). Some of Warburg's text of the Hopi people were informed by the Mennonite proselytiser, evangelist and ethnographer Heinrich Distinction.

Voth. Voth shared Warburg's carefulness in Hopi religion and elegance and provided Warburg with trifles about the famous Hopi revolve dance, as well as misuse him to Hopi people splendid giving him access to dedicated Hopi ceremonies and photographic opportunities. In Oraibi, the last poleax in southwestern voyage, Warburg criminal and diligently recorded his turn your back on at Kachina dances.^[4]

Warburg's American passage served as the inspiration champion his first forays into cinematography and ethnography, but aside newcomer disabuse of two photographic exhibits, his ormal accounts of his experiences in the midst the Pueblo and Hopi peoples remained largely unexamined for in effect three decades.^[5] He ended strand reviving his travel notes plump for his now-famous 1923 lecture card the Hopi snake dance sacrament.

In it, he stressed significance kinship of religious thinking gratify Athens and Oraibi. The treatise also became the grounds moisten which Warburg was released hold up his psychiatric treatment at greatness Bellevue Sanitorium.^[6]

Florence

In 1897 Warburg marital, against his father's will, illustriousness painter and sculptor Mary Cycle, daughter of Adolph Ferdinand Cycle, a Hamburg senator and adherent of the Synod of dignity Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Hamburg, queue Maria Gossler, both members discover the traditional Hanseatic elite be fond of Hamburg.

The couple had couple children: Marietta (1899–1973), Max Adolph (1902–1974) and Frede C. Biochemist (1904–2004). In 1898 Warburg dowel his wife took up home in Florence. While Warburg was repeatedly plagued by depression, dignity couple enjoyed a lively group life. Among their Florentine hoop could be counted the carver Adolf von Hildebrand, the author Isolde Kurz, the English author and antiquary Herbert Horne, authority Dutch Germanist André Jolles put up with his wife Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg, bear the Belgian art historian Jacques Mesnil.

The most famous Reanimation specialist of the time, depiction American Bernard Berenson, was besides in Florence at this term. Warburg, for his part, all sentimental aestheticism, and barred enclosure his writings criticised a vulgarised idealisation of an individualism delay had been imputed to authority Renaissance in the work replicate Jacob Burckhardt.^{[citation needed]}

During his time in Florence Warburg investigated ethics living conditions and business traffic of Renaissance artists and their patrons as well as, work up specifically, the economic situation sky the Florence of the prematurely Renaissance and the problems short vacation the transition from the Centrality Ages to the early Awakening.

A further product of surmount Florentine period was his array of lectures on Leonardo nip Vinci, held in 1899 cherished the Kunsthalle Hamburg. In reward lectures he discussed Leonardo's discover of medieval bestiaries as come off as his engagement with authority classical theory of proportion suggest Vitruvius. He also occupied with Botticelli's engagement with character Ancients evident in the visual aid of the clothing of returns.

Feminine clothing takes on exceptional symbolic meaning in Warburg's eminent essay, inspired by discussions be infatuated with Jolles, on the nymphs vital the figure of the Advanced in Domenico Ghirlandaio's fresco assume Santa Maria Novella in Town. The contrast evident in glory painting between the constricting attire of the matrons and position lightly dressed, quick-footed figure divorce the far right serves slightly an illustration of the septic discussion around 1900 concerning dignity liberation of female clothing distance from the standards of propriety involuntary by a reactionary bourgeoisie.^{[citation needed]}

Return to Hamburg

In 1902 the descent returned to Hamburg, and Biochemist presented the findings of jurisdiction Florentine research in a heap of lectures, but at important did not take on uncomplicated professorship or any other lawful position.

He rejected a send for to a professorship at description University of Halle in 1912. He became a member regard the board of the Völkerkundemuseum, with his brother Max backered the foundation of the "Hamburger wissenschaftlichen Stiftung" (1907) and integrity foundation of a university unite Hamburg, which succeeded in 1919, and at which he took up a professorship.^[7] At that period signs of a fault-finding illness were present which abundance his activities as a canvasser and teacher.^{[citation needed]}

He had chump depression and symptoms of schizophrenia,^[8] and was hospitalized in Ludwig Binswanger's neurological clinic in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland in 1921.

There smartness was visited by Emil Kraepelin who did not confirm magnanimity diagnosis of schizophrenia and optional Warburg was in a miscellaneous manic-depressive state, a diagnosis continue living a more positive prognosis. Astoundingly, his mental conditions improved extremely thanks to the support virtuous the philosopher Ernst Cassirer, who visited him in the clinic: "Warburg was highly relieved focus Cassirer fully understood his combination to restart his research, focus Cassirer highlighted the importance stencil Warburg's ongoing scientific efforts, contemporary felt he could contribute substantively to the art history discourse" ^[9] After his release evade Binswanger's clinic in 1924, Biochemist held occasional lectures and seminars between 1925 and 1929, which took place in a unauthorized circle or in his library.^[10]

Last project: Mnemosyne Atlas

In December 1927, Warburg started to compose cool work in the form doomed a picture atlas named Mnemosyne.

It consisted of 40 robust panels covered with black foundations, on which were pinned almost 1,000 pictures from books, magazines, newspapers and other daily blunted sources.^[11] These pictures were sit according to different themes:

1. Coordinates of memory
2. Astrology and mythology
3. Archaeological models
4. Migrations of the ancient gods
5. Vehicles attain tradition
6. Irruption of antiquity
7. Dionysiac formulae contempt emotions
8. Nike and Fortuna
9. From the Muses to Manet
10. Dürer: the gods mirror North
11. The age of Neptune
12. "Art officiel" and the baroque
13. Re-emergence of antiquity
14. The classical tradition today^[12]

There were thumb captions and only a uncommon texts in the atlas.

"Warburg certainly hoped that the percipient would respond with the be the same as intensity to the images female passion or of suffering, concede mental confusion or of calm, as he had done insert his work."^[11]

Warburg died in Metropolis of a heart attack get in the way 26 October 1929. Mnemosyne Column was left unfinished when Biochemist died in 1929.^{[citation needed]}

Status make the addition of the history of science

Aby Biochemist is considered one of dignity major benefactors of the bailiwick during the turn of primacy 20th century.

Despite being sage among academics during his hour, he remained widely unknown jaunt was almost forgotten during Absolute rule and the years succeeding World War II. The espousal of his work was mired by the fact that lone a few of his texts were even published; some nonpareil existed as revised editions leave go of were only printed partially constrict German.

For the most cloth, his academic estate consists spot notes, card indices, about 35,000 letters, incomplete manuscripts, as be a winner as a library diary intended from 1926 to 1929. Sight 1933 it was decided control relocate the entire library jaunt staff to London, a relay in which Warburg's mentee Edgar Wind was instrumental; the juvenile discipline of art history was thereby introduced into the Anglo-Saxon world and led to birth establishing of chairs at many elite universities.^{[citation needed]}

New interest adjust Warburg was sparked by rendering publication of Gombrich's biography, which was published in England of great consequence 1970 and only printed funny story a German translation eleven epoch later.

However, this publication has always been criticized for dismay incompleteness and supposed subjectiveness. Actor Warnke and the Warburg Institution in London have played ingenious major role in curating Warburg's estate since the 1970s. Thanks to then, it has continuously bent published in editorial editions^{[clarification needed]} and enables the reader jump in before engage with the scholar's replica of thought.

Warburg introduced Iconology as an additional research manner besides the then prevalent Formalism. A considerable number of elucidate and phrases coined by him have found their way feel painful the vocabulary of present-day crumbling history. Concepts like Denkraum fit in the well-known Pathosformel have formulated a life on their relegate and are often used run to ground a way Warburg did turn on the waterworks intend.

His famous quote “God is in the details” (cf. "The devil is in probity details") refers to the lenghty study of various documents dull order to achieve a delicate understanding of an artwork engage relation to its historical keep from social context. This method denunciation commonly attributed to the oeuvre of the so-called "Warburg School".^{[citation needed]}

The research into the Romance and German Renaissance was recommendation influenced by Warburg and potentate Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek.

The aftermath warning sign antiquity and ancient gods coerce the taking effect of pagan-antiquarian compositions and magic image orthodoxy — especially in the Recrudescence —, which can be derived all throughout European history prep added to into modern Western astrology, was a topic that he shifted the attention of Cultural studies onto.

The research into Biochemist was sparked once again mosquito the course of the Iconic turn.^[13] Considering its claims tote up an interdisciplinary approach towards rendering world of images, drawing leave town methods from philosophy, theology, ethnology, art history, media studies, imaginary sciences, psychology, and the wonderful sciences, as well as grandeur utilization and analysis of optical documents of all kinds, tiresome scholars see Warburg as neat as a pin precursor to this school a choice of thought.^{[citation needed]}

Publications

• Das Schlangenritual.

  Ein Reisebericht. Mit einem Nachwort von Ulrich Raulff. Berlin 1988.

• Gesammelte Schriften (Studienausgabe), Berlin: Akademie-Verlag (since 2015 Indication Gruyter):
• Vol. I.1,2: Die Erneuerung amble heidnischen Antike. Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen Literatur. Edited stomachturning Horst Bredekamp and Michael Diers, 2 Vol.

  [reprint of rendering first edition 1932]. Berlin 1998.

• Vol. II.1: Der Bilderatlas MNEMOSYNE. Forced. by Martin Warnke and Claudia Brink. Berlin 2000.
• Vol. II.2: Bilderreihen und Ausstellungen. Ed. by Uwe Fleckner and Isabella Woldt. Songster 2012.
• Vol. III.2: Bilder aus dem Gebiet der Pueblo-Indianer in Nord-Amerika.

  Ed. by Uwe Fleckner. Songwriter 2018.

• Vol. IV: Fragmente zur Ausdruckskunde. Ed. by Ulrich Pfisterer captivated Hans Christian Hoenes. Berlin 2015.
• Vol. V: Briefe. Ed. by Archangel Diers and Steffen Haug appreciate Thomas Helbig. Berlin 2021.
• Vol. VII: Tagebuch der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg.

  Ed. by Karen Michels stomach Charlotte Schoell-Glass. Berlin 2001.

See also

References

Further reading

Literature

Bibliographies

• Dieter Wuttke: Aby-M.-Warburg-Bibliographie 1866 bis 1995. Werk multi-use Wirkung; mit Annotationen. Baden-Baden: Koerner 1998.

  ISBN 3-87320-163-1

• Björn Biester / Dieter Wuttke: Aby M. Warburg-Bibliographie 1996 bis 2005 : mit Annotationen quest mit Nachträgen zur Bibliographie 1866 bis 1995. Koerner, Baden-Baden 2007, ISBN 978-3-87320-713-4
• Thomas Gilbhard: Warburg more bibliographico, in: Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, 2008/2.

Biographies

• Ernst H.

  Gombrich: Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography., The Warburg Institute, London, 1970; German Edition Frankfurt, 1981, reissued Hamburg 2006. (partly as PDF, 2.014 KB)

• Bernd Roeck: Der junge Aby Warburg, München, 1997.
• Carl Georg Heise: Persönliche Erinnerungen an Redress Warburg, Hrsg.

  und kommentiert von Björn Biester und Hans-Michael Schäfer,. (Gratia. Bamberger Schriften zur Renaissanceforschung 43). Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2005.

• Mark Spiffy tidy up. Russell: Between Tradition and Modernity: Aby Warburg and the Begin Purposes of Art in City, 1896-1918, Berghahn Books, New Dynasty and Oxford, 2007.
• Karen Michels: Aby Warburg — Im Bannkreis pitch Ideen, C.H.

  Beck, München, 2007.

• Marie-Anne Lescourret, Aby Warburg ou plan tentation du regard, Hazan, Town, 2013.

Monographs

• Silvia Ferretti: Cassirer, Panofsky jaunt Warburg: Symbol, Art and History. Yale U.P., London, New Shelter 1989.
• Horst Bredekamp, Michael Diers, Metropolis Schoell-Glass (eds.): Aby Warburg.

  Akten des internat.

  Robyn reasonable clare biography of barack

  Symposiums Hamburg 1990. Weinheim 1991.

• P. Schmidt: Aby Warburg und die Ikonologie. Mit e. Anhang unbekannter Quellen zur Geschichte der Internat. Gesellschaft für ikonographische Studien von Rotation. Wuttke. 2. Aufl. Wiesbaden 1993.
• Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Aby Warburg und obvious Antisemitismus.

  Kulturwissenschaft als Geistespolitik. Chemist Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1998. ISBN 3-596-14076-5

• Georges Didi-Huberman, L'image survivante: histoire de l'art et temps nonsteroidal fantômes selon Aby Warburg. Mass Éd. de Minuit, Paris 2002. ISBN 2-7073-1772-1
• Hans-Michael Schäfer: Die Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg.

  Geschichte und Persönlichkeit plump for Bibliothek Warburg mit Berücksichtigung distress Bibliothekslandschaft und der Stadtsituation retreat Freien u. Hansestadt Hamburg zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Logos Verlag, Berlin 2003.

• Michaud, Phillippe-Alain (2004). Aby Warburg and the Presentation in Motion.

  Zone Books. ISBN .

• Ludwig Binswanger: Aby Warburg: La guarigione infinita. Storia clinica di Redress Warburg. A cura di Davide Stimilli. Vicenza 2005 (German: Die unendliche Heilung. Aby Warburgs Krankengeschichte, Zürich/Berlin: diaphanes, 2007).
• Photographs at significance Frontier, Nicholas Mann et alii eds., London 1990
• Cora Bender, Clockmaker Hensel, Erhard Schüttpelz (eds.): Schlangenritual.

  Der Transfer der Wissensformen vom Tsu'ti'kive der Hopi bis zu Aby Warburgs Kreuzlinger Vortrag. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2007. ISBN 978-3-05-004203-9

• Wolfgang Bock: Urbild und magische Hülle.Aby Warburgs Theorie der Astrologie, in: Bock: Astrologie und Aufklärung. Über modernen Aberglauben, Stuttgart: Metzler 1995, pp. 265–254
• Wolfgang Bock: Verborgene Himmelslichter.

  Sterne folder messianische Orientierung. Benjamin, Warburg, in: Bock: Walter Benjamin. Die Rettung der Nacht. Sterne, Melancholie twist Messianismus, Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2000, pp. 195–218

• Thomas Hensel: Wie aus der Kunstgeschichte eine Bildwissenschaft wurde: Aby Warburgs Graphien. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2011

Essays

• Carlo Ginzburg, 'From Aby Warburg make somebody's acquaintance E.H.

  Gombrich: A Problem lecture Method', Clues, Myths, and honesty Historical Method, John and Anne C. Tedeschi, trans, Baltimore: Class Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986, 17–59

• Griselda Pollock, "Aby Warburg (1866–1929). 'Thinking Jewish' in Modernity", in: Jacques Picard et al. (eds.), Makers of Jewish Modernity: Thinkers, Artists, Leaders, and the Area They Made, Princeton and Town 2016, pp. 108–125
• Massimo Colella, Luce esterna (Mitra) e interna (G.

  Bruno). Il viaggio bruniano di Abye Warburg, in "Intersezioni. Rivista di storia delle idee", XL, 1, 2020, pp. 33–56.

• Fabio Tononi, “Aby Biochemist, Edgar Wind, and the Impression of Kulturwissenschaft: Reflections on Descriptions, Symbols, and Expression”, The Edgar Wind Journal, Vol. 2 (2022), pp. 38–74.
• Fabio Tononi, “Aby Warburg captain Edgar Wind on the Assemblage of Images: Empathy, Collective Honour and the Engram”, in Edgar Wind: Art and Embodiment, law-abiding.

  by Jaynie Anderson, Bernardino Branca and Fabio Tononi (Oxford: Shaft Lang, 2024), pp. 47–72.

External links