From Symbol to Allegory: Aby Warburg's Theory of Art

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From Symbol to Allegory: Aby Warburg's Theory of Art
Author(s): Matthew Rampley
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 79, No. 1 (Mar., 1997), pp. 41-55
Published by: College Art Association
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From to of Art
Symbol Allegory: Aby Warburg's Theory
Matthew
Rampley
Recent years have seen a remarkable reawakening of critical Kunstindustrie, the latter having already been translated once
interest among Anglophone art historians in the German (though poorly) little more than ten years ago.6
roots of their discipline. In particular, Michael Podro's book Within this context one person remains notable by his
The Critical Historians of Art has seemingly acted as a catalyst absence. I am referring to Aby Warburg, and it is all the more
for renewed attention to a subject that has more usually been curious that he should have suffered relative neglect, given
restricted in its appeal, for obvious reasons, to German the continued existence of the institute bearing his name. It is
scholars.' However, while Podro's book deals with a broad important not to read such an observation as recommending
tradition extending from Kant to Panofsky, discussing the that we merely resurrect his writings, as if the investigation
more famous figures in German art history as well as lesser- into the origins of art history were merely an archaeological
known writers such as Adolf G611er, Anton Springer, or exercise. Indeed, if the return to the origins of art history has
Gottfried Semper, the main beneficiaries of this new critical any meaning, it can only be because the thought of the
interest have tended to be Erwin Panofsky and Alois Riegl. discipline's German and Austrian "grandfathers" is still felt to
The reasons for the interest in Panofsky are fairly clear; be of relevance today.7 Rather, I draw attention to the neglect
having immigrated to the United States during the 1930s, of Warburg precisely because it is through an engagement
Panofsky was already prominent in the field of Anglo- with his thought, more than with that of Panofsky or Riegl,
American scholarship through books such as Studies in Iconol- that the continued importance of the philosophical concerns
ogy or Early Netherlandish Painting.2 Hence, the "return" to of the art history of the beginning of this century becomes
Panofsky consisted largely of an extension of interest in his most evident. And yet, if the example of Warburg can serve
work to encompass those writings produced before Panofsky's above all as the locus of a meaningful dialogue with art
departure from Germany.3 Riegl, on the other hand, has history's past, it is also the case that he has frequently been
benefited from the recognition of surface similarities between seen as an antecedent, his work treated as a prelude rather
his structural analysis of the grammar of form and the current than as meriting substantial attention in its own right.
"linguistic turn" in the social sciences. It is this topicality of Consequently, since Sir Ernst Gombrich's worthy study of
Riegl, perhaps, that motivates Margaret Iversen's study of 1970,8 very little has been written in English on Warburg,9 an
Riegl.4 In addition, at the time of writing, not only has Riegl's omission that stands in contrast with the situation in Ger-
Stilfragen been translated,5 but also translations are currently many.10
under way of Das Holldndische Gruppenportrdat nd Spdtromische In this paper, therefore, I intend to indicate some of the
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine. Margaret Iversen, "Aby Warburg and the New Art History," in Aby Warburg:
1. Michael Podro, The CritzcalH istorians ofArt, New Haven, 1982. Akten des InternatzonalenS ymposionsH amburg 1990, ed. H. Bredekamp, M. Diers,
2. Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistzc Themes in the Art of the C. Schoell-Glass, Weinheim, 1991, 281-87; Peter Burke, "Aby Warburg as
Renaissance, New York, 1939; Early Netherlandzsh Paintzng, Cambridge, Mass., Historical Anthropologist," Akten, 39-44. Michael Ann Holly has recently
1953. mounted a robust defense of Warburg against the charge by A. L. Rees and F.
3. This is certainly the case with Michael Ann Holly's study, as is confirmed Borzello, in their introduction to The New Art Hzstory,L ondon, 1986, 2-10, that
by the recent translation of Panofsky's pioneering paper on perspective. See German art history was hostile to theory. Holly, "Unwriting Iconology," in
Holly, Panofsky and the Foundatzons of Art Hzstory, Ithaca, N.Y., 1984, and Iconographya t the Crossroads,e d. Brendan Cassidy, Princeton, N.J., 1993, 17-25.
Panofsky, Perspectivea s SymbolicF orm, trans. C. Wood, New York, 1991. 10. Most significant in this context is the forthcoming German publication
4. Margaret Iversen, Alois Rzegl: Art Hzstory and Theory, Cambridge, Mass., of Warburg's entire works, including the picture atlas "Mnemosyne" and
1993. Warburg's numerous notes and fragments: Aby Warburg, GesammelteS chrften,
5. Alois Riegl, Problemso f Style, trans. E. Kain, Princeton, N.J., 1992. ed. N. Mann et al., Berlin, 1996-. The following represent some of the more
6. Alois Riegl, Late Roman Art Industry, trans. R. Wlnkes, Rome, 1985. notable recent publications in German on Warburg: Dieter Wuttke, Aby
Excerpts from the forthcoming publication by Zone Books of Benjamin Warburgs Methode als Anregung und Aufgabe, Gbttingen, 1979; Werner Hof-
Binstock's translation of Das Holldndzsche Gruppenportrtith ave recently ap- mann, Georg Syamken, and Martin Warnke, eds., Die Menschenrechted es Auges:
peared in OctoberLg XXIV1, 995, 3-35. UberA by Warburg,F rankfurt am Main, 1980; Martin Jesinghausen-Lauster, Die
7. Both Michael Podro and Heinrich Dilly have asked just this question, Suche nach der SymbolischenF orm:D er Kreis um dze kulturwzssenschaftlicheB zbliothek
namely, why should we be concerned with the history of art history? See Dilly, Warburg, Baden-Baden, 1985; Yoshihiko Maikuma, Der Begnff der Kultur bei
"Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte-Wozu?" Ars Hunganca, xvIII, 1990, 7-14; Warburg, Nzetzscheu nd Burckhardt, K6nigstein, 1985; Roland Kany, Mnemosyne
Michael Podro, "Art History and the Concept of Art," in Kategonen und als Programm:G eschichte,E rinnerung und dzeA ndacht zm Werkv on Usener;W arburg
Methoden der deutschen Kunstgeschichte 1900-1930, ed. Lorenz Dittmann, Stutt- und Benjamzn, Tilbingen, 1987; Dorothee Bauerle, Gespenstergeschichtenfu ir
gart, 1985, 209-17. Ganz Erwachsene:E zn Kommentarzu Aby WarburgsB ilderatlas Mnemosyne,M linster,
8. Ernst Gombrich, Aby Warburg:A n Intellectual Biography,2 d ed., 1986. 1988; Roland Kany, Die relzgionsgeschichtlichFeo rschung an derK ulturwissenschaftlz-
9. Exceptions would be Kurt Forster, "Aby Warburg's History of Art: chen Bzbliothek Warburg, Bamberg, 1989; Martin Warnke, "Warburg," in
Collective Memory and the Social Mediation of Images," Daedalus, cv, 1976, Altmeister moderner Kunstgeschichte, ed. Heinrich Dilly, Berlin, 1990, 117-30;
169-76; Silvia Feretti, Casszrer,P anofsky and Warburg. Symbol, Art and Hzstory, Michael Diers, "Von der Ideologie- zur Ikonologiekritik: Die Warburg-
trans. R. Pierce, New Haven, 1989; Carlo Ginzburg, "From Aby Warburg to Renaissancen," in FrankfurterS chule und Kunstgeschichte,e d. Andreas Berndt et
E. H. Gombrich: A Problem of Method," in Myths, Emblems, Clues, trans. John al., Berlin, 1992; Salvatore Settis, "Kunstgeschichte als vergleichende Kultur-
and Ann Tedeschi, London, 1990, 17-59; Margaret Iversen, "Retrieving wissenschaft: Aby Warburg, die Pueblolndianer und das Nachleben der
Warburg's Tradition," Art Hzstory, xvi, no. 4, 1993, 541-53; and the contribu- Antike," in KzinstlenscherA ustausch/ArtzstzcE xchange Akten des xxvIwI nternatio-
tions of Iversen and Peter Burke to the Warburg Conference of 1990. See nalen Kongressesf tir Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, 15-20Julz 1992, ed. T. Gaehtgens,
42 ART BULLETIN MARCH 1997 VOLUME LXXIX NUMBER 1
philosophical, psychological, and art historiographical con- cesses through visual images ... as embodied in the conven-
cerns of Warburg's work that suggest why it should remain an tions and beliefs or assumptions of a society."'2 Similarly,
object of more than mere historical interest. Central to my Colin Eisler has argued that Warburg's "institute was devoted
argument is the contention that in many respects the charac- to the unravelling of the recherche, to the demystification of
ter of Warburg's interest in the "Nachleben der Antike" has such varied monuments of visual authority as Botticelli's
been misrecognized. In particular, I intend to demonstrate allegories or American Indian sand paintings, all to be seen
that Warburg's researches, symbolized perhaps in his dictum through texts and understood by cultural context," while
"Der liebe Gott steckt im Detail" (God is in the detail)," have more recently, according to Jack Spector, "Warburg's method
often been interpreted, wrongly, as involving little more than as presented by Gombrich involved his restoring images of the
the amassing of philological data. This view of Warburg past to their original setting, their cultural milieu."'3
thereby pays scant attention to the general cultural-theoreti- This interpretation appears to be vindicated by an initial
cal perspective underpinning his work. Undoubtedly, War- reading of the dissertation. In his study of Botticelli Warburg
burg's own immersion in often arcane and esoteric bodies of seems to be preoccupied with piecing together the web of
knowledge has contributed to the underplaying of the philo- symbolic representations of antiquity dominant in quat-
sophical basis of his thought. In contrast, however, a careful trocento Florence. Of particular importance in this context is
study of Warburg's work throws up important parallels not the role of what Warburg terms the "bewegtes Beiwerk"
only with Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, and other contem- (Warburg, 1992, 18) in the Florentine re-creation of antiquity.
poraries, but also with figures such as Walter Benjamin, Georg This is a difficult term to translate elegantly, but its sense may
Lukaics, and Theodor Adorno, whose work still occupies a best be rendered as "animated incidental detail" or "ani-
prominent position in the contemporary intellectual land- mated accessory." Warburg uses this notion to refer to the
scape. In the case of Benjamin, a clear line of influence can be emphasis, in Botticelli's Birth of Venus (Fig. 1), on Venus's
seen; indeed, Benjamin's attempts to become associated with flowing, windswept locks or to the representation of the
the Warburg circle are well documented. Beyond Benjamin, mantle held out to her as fluttering in the wind, a sense of
however, one can see common to Warburg and those others animation repeated in Primavera (Fig. 2) in the dress of the
mentioned an interest in the archaeology of modernity in all nymph Flora on the far right or of the goddess of Spring
its forms, and within that archaeological project, Warburg's scattering flowers in the foreground.
achievement lies in his analysis of the visual documents that chart Warburg's study, by focusing on the presence of this
the emergence of a specifically modern cultural sensibility. element in Botticelli, suggests that the re-creation of antiquity
in The Birth of Venus and Primavera differs substantially from
Warburg's first published work is his dissertation of 1893 on what even in Warburg's own time was the dominant image of
Botticelli's Birth of Venusa nd Primavera, and while one has to the ancient world, namely, Johann Winckelmann's idea of
exercise extreme caution when imputing any unity to War- "still grandeur."'14F urther, the dissertation aims to place the
burg's oeuvre, the dissertation introduces the one theme that "bewegtes Beiwerk" of Botticelli's paintings within the wider
could be said to recur throughout his published and unpub- context of quattrocento Florentine culture by making refer-
lished writings, namely, the role of the mimetic in the history ence to Botticelli's contemporaries Leon Battista Alberti and
of representation. Angelo Poliziano. Warburg draws attention to the remarkable
In drawing attention to Warburg's "theory" of mimesis, I similarities between The Birth of Venus and Poliziano's poem
am quite consciously working against a widespread interpreta- Giostra, and between Primavera and Poliziano's Latin bucolic
tion of Warburg. This interpretation holds that Warburg's poem Rusticus. Warburg's interest does not lie exclusively in
thought marks the founding of the iconological "method," demonstrating the influence of Poliziano on Botticelli, though
which calls for analysis of the meaning of works of art through he also argues for this.'5 Instead, he is concerned to show that
attention to parallels between motifs in the works in question both Botticelli and Poliziano fit into a wider understanding of
and other cultural phenomena of the time, including literary antiquity, one that finds parallels elsewhere, for example, in
and theological documents. Hence, Warburg's iconological Alberti's comments in De Pictura on the importance of
method is often taken as aiming merely toward the construc- movement, or in the works of other Florentine poets, such as
tion of an artistic and cultural milieu within which the work of Zanobio Acciaiuoli, whose Horatian ode "Ve[ne]ris Descrip-
art takes its place and gains meaning. Mark Roskill writes, for tio" presents an image of Venus that highlights just those
example, that "Aby Warburg, in reviving [iconology] ex- animated features Warburg detects in Botticelli (Warburg,
plained it as the study and interpretation of historical pro- 1992, 50).16
Berlzn, 1993, 139-58; Robert Galztz and Brzta Reimers, eds., Aby Warburg:" Ekstatz- of Psychoanalytic Research in Art History," Art Bulletzn, i.xx, no. 1, 1988, 67. It
sche Nymphe ... trauernder Fluflgott," Portrait eines Gelehrten, Hamburg, 1995, should be added that Spector's remarks offer a peculiar reading of Gom-
also the Proceedings of the 1990 Conference (as in n. 9). Mention should be brich's study.
made of the forthcoming English translation of Warburg's GesammelteS chrzften 14. Johann Winckelmann, Geschichted er Kunst des Altertums, Dresden, 1764,
under the imprint of the Getty Center for the History of Art and the 167-68.
Humanities. Publication is not imminent, however. 15. Warburg's argument for the influence of Poliziano on Botticelli has in
11. For some time there was debate over whether or not Warburg actually any case been disputed. See Ernst Gombrich, "Botticelli's Mythologies: A
said this. Recently, however, a literary fragment containing precisely this Study in the Neo-Platonic Symbolism of His Circle," in SymbolwIcm ages, Oxford,
dictum has been published in Warburg, Ausgewahlte Schriftenu nd Wurdzgungen, 1972, 31-81.
1992, 618. 16. Leon Battista Alberti, On Paintzng, trans. C. Grayson, Harmondsworth,
12. Mark Roskill, The Interpretatzono fPzctures,A mherst, Mass., 1989, 96. 1991, 76 ff. Warburg notes in addition that the image of Venus in both
13. Colin Eisler, "Panofsky and His Peers in a Warburgian Psyche Glass," Botticelli paintings recalls a passage of the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius and
Source:N otes in the Hzstory ofArt, Iv, nos. 2-3, 1985, 85;Jack Spector, "The State also one of Horace's odes (Book I, 30).
ABY WARBURG'S THEORY OF ART 43
1 Sandro Botticelli, TheB irth of Venus.F lorence, Uffizi Gallery (photo: Alinari)
2 Sandro Botticelli, PrimaveraF. lorence, Uffizi Gallery (photo: Alinari)
44 ART BULLETIN MARCH 1997 VOLUME LXXIX NUMBER 1
Warburg's dissertation aims to establish the character of a space.22 Underlying this theory was also the idea that vision
discourse of antiquity in quattrocento Florence, an aim that alone perceived the world in two dimensions: "space has its
would seem to confirm the picture of Warburg discussed origin in two dimensions ... the third dimension can evi-
above, namely, as concerned to reconstruct a particular dently not be seen at first, it must be regarded ... as
sociohistorical cultural milieu. This reconstruction of the something supplementary."23 Such a theory is, of course,
cultural milieu of quattrocento Florence seems to be the highly problematic in its assumption that the visual field is
central goal of the study of Botticelli, thereby reinforcing the two-dimensional, but it was to prove highly influential for a
popular view of Warburg I discussed above. It would be specific strand of nineteenth-century psychological aesthet-
wrong, however, to focus exclusively on this aspect of his work. ics, culminating, perhaps, in Adolf Hildebrand's Problem of
Specifically, such an approach would be singularly one-sided, Form in theF ine Arts of 1893 and Riegl's use of the haptic/optic
distinction.24 Herbart's stress on the interaction of the hand
neglecting the considerable philosophical and psychological
themes governing the argument. An indication that the and the eye and his argument that experience of the three-
dissertation has a wider purpose than the mere amassing of dimensional world depends on the supplementing of visual
perception by an active bodily engagement with the world are
philological and historical data can be seen in Warburg's
of central importance in this regard. His use of a dialectic of
comments in the preface, where he notes the role of empathy the visual and the corporeal was to have a substantial impact
as a "force active in the generation of style" (Warburg, 1992, on general theories of perception since it paved the way for
13). Warburg's mention here of empathy is noteworthy, for the application of physiology, then a fast-growing field, to the
this concept is central to an understanding of the dissertation, psychology of perception. Thus, a general orientation of
as is also his reference to the influential essay of Robert philosophy to science resulted, which remained dominant in
Vischer of 1873, On the Optical Sense of Form.17A s Edgar Wind the mid-nineteenth century, through figures such as Her-
has argued, the philosophical significance of Warburg's mann Helmholtz and Friedrich Lange, until the renewal of
dissertation becomes clear only if one takes into account the Kantianism by Hermann Cohen and the so-called Marburg
influence of Vischer's essay on empathy;18 consequently, I School of neo-Kantians in the 1870s.25
shall now turn to discussion of the idea of empathy. Within the sphere of Aesthetics this conflation of the
The origins of a philosophical interest in empathy lie in cognitive and the physiological formed the basis of empathy
German Romanticism, but empathy did not become a subject theory, whereby the aesthetic interest in the purely formal
of substantial debate until the second half of the nineteenth aspects of the object was accompanied by an emotional
century with the growth of interest in the psychology of engagement with it. In Outlines of Aesthetics, for example,
perception. The ground for Vischer's treatise had been well Hermann Lotze writes that "we cannot mentally represent
prepared by the work of Johann Herbart, Hermann Lotze, the most abstract concepts ... without ... transposing our-
and Karl K6stlin. Indeed, in various ways Vischer's essay On the selves ... into their content and sympathetically enjoying the
Optical Sense of Form develops further ideas of his father, peculiarly coloured pleasure or pain which corresponds to
Friedrich Theodor, first indicated in the "Kritik meiner it," adding later that
Asthetik" of 1866.19 Yet if Robert Vischer's essay was not the
first essay on empathy, it was this study that was to prove the impression exerted upon us, for example by the
seminal for an entire generation of art historians, including symmetry of a figure, by the consistency of the curvature of
Warburg, Heinrich W61lfflin,a nd Bernard Berenson.20 a line, by the peculiar contrast between the two equal
The inaugural moment for late-nineteenth-century empa- branches of an arabesque ... depends in large measure
thy theory can be located in Herbart's attempt to mediate upon the fact that all these individual phenomena secretly
remind us of this universal nature of the aforesaid three
between empiricism and rationalism, based on the conviction
great forms [space, time, motion] by means of which ...
that "the doctrines either that the soul is originally a tabula
the impossibility of ever withdrawing oneself from the
rasa or that it produces its representations from itself, can and
close union with reality is everywhere secured.2"
must be united."''21 In particular, Herbart took issue with
Immanuel Kant's notion of space as an a priori form of It is from this context that Vischer's treatise on empathy
intuition, arguing instead that the experience of space was an and perception emerges. To translate the term "Einfiihlung"
abstraction based on the synthesis of tactile sensations. In this as "empathy" is in one sense misleading in that it masks a
process, Herbart claimed, a key role was taken up by the complex taxonomy of psychological responses outlined by
movement of the body, for it is only "when one moves the eye Vischer, including "Zuffihlung," "Nachffihlung," "An-
that sees and the hand that touches backwards and forwards" fihlung," and "Zusammenffihlung." Underlying all these
that one builds up a representation of three-dimensional interrelated concepts, however, is a much more basic distinc-
17. Robert Vischer, Uber das OptzscheF ormgefiihl: Ezn Beitrag zur Aesthetzk, 1993, 106-13.
Leipzig, 1873. This has been recently translated as "On the Optical Sense of 19. Friedrich Theodor Vischer, "Kntik meiner Asthetik," in Kntzsche Gange,
Form," in Mallgrave and Ikonomou, 1994, 89-123. All references to the essay Stuttgart, 1866, v, 1-156, and vi, 1-131.
will be to the English translation. 20. W61lfflin's doctoral dissertation of 1886 consisted of an application of
18. Wind wrote a hostile review of Gombrich's Aby Warburg-A n Intellectual Robert Vischer's notion of empathy to architectural theory. See Heinrich
Bzography,a nd one of his principal objections focused on precisely this point, W1lfflin, "Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture," in Mallgrave and
namely, the seminal role of Vischer, which Wind felt Gombrich had quite Ikonomou, 1994, 148-90. As Edgar Wind has pointed out, while Berenson's
wrongly passed over. See Edgar Wind, "On a Recent Biography of Warburg," fame (or notoriety) now rests on his espousal of Morellian connoisseurship,
in The Eloquence of Symbols:S tudies zn Humanist Art, ed. J. Anderson, Oxford, much of his interest in empathy and tactile values is derived directly from
ABY WARBURG'S THEORY OF ART 45
tion between 'seeing' ('sehen') and 'looking' ('schauen'). Vischer explores two other issues of central importance here,
This distinction rests on an opposition between simple passive which will clarify the nature of his influence on Warburg, that
'seeing' as a physiological process of stimulus reception, is, his analyses of imagination and of the dream.
where the "impression received is still undifferentiated" While the body serves as the indicator of similarity and
(Vischer, 93) and 'looking.' The latter, Vischer argues, "sets dissimilarity, it is the imagination, argues Vischer, that permits
out to analyze the forms dialectically... and to bring them such a mimetic entering into the object. In other words, while
into a mechanical relationship.. . the impression of seeing is the immediate sensation of pure seeing in some sense
repeated on a higher level" (Vischer, 94). A familiar philo- presents the raw data of experience, it is the imagination that
sophical motif is being played out here, since Vischer is functions as a "fluid medium" within which the subject
implying the primary importance of the interaction of the achieves an empathic reciprocity with the object, and it is also
subject with the world, inasmuch as the world becomes because of the mediating role of the imagination that the
meaningful only through a process of reflection and analysis. empathic object is invested with an emotional content. As
Indeed, the nature of this interaction is specified through Vischer writes, "my kinship with the elements is too remote to
appeal to Herbart's work on the relation of optic and haptic; require any kind of compassion on my part. ... At this point,
as Vischer says, "the child learns to see by touching" (Vischer, however, our feeling rises up ... we miss red-blooded life and
94). This analysis of form is not to be assimilated to a Hegelian precisely because we miss it we imagine the dead form as
process of logical reflection, however, despite the surface living" (Vischer, 104). Hence, the imagination permits the
similarities, for Vischer is keen to stress that 'looking' involves analogy with the body to extend so far as to invest the object
more than simply giving the phenomenon greater conceptual with the same animation as the subject's body itself. Mention
determinacy. As will be apparent later, the consequence of the of the imagination also points toward art, since ultimately the
active participation in the world central to looking is that the treatise is an inquiry into aesthetics. For, Vischer claims, art is
world becomes invested with value. As Vischer notes, "I have "an intensification of sensuousness" (Vischer, 116), and
an enclosed, complete image, but one developed and filled therefore, through the artistic imagination the mimetic assimi-
with emotion" (Vischer, 94); the "dead phenomenon" of lation of the subject to the object occurs in its most intense
mere seeing is, through looking, "given a rhythmic enlivening form.
and revitalization" (Vischer, 94). With the mention of art we are also introduced to a
Following Vischer's argument, the basis of this "penetrat- secondary consideration, namely, the symbolization of em-
ing into the phenomenon" (Vischer, 101) is a mimetic pathic sensation through myth. In a later part of the treatise
impulse, since, as he notes, "the criterion of sensation lies ... Vischer discusses the tendency in myth to symbolize natural
in the concept of similarity ... not so much a harmony within phenomena such as storms, avalanches, and so forth on the
the object as a harmony between the object and the subject" basis of empathy, for the desire to explain them as the work of
(Vischer, 101). This introduction of the notion of mimesis is mythical deities stems directly from the urge to "animate"
perhaps a key moment in Vischer's text since it opens up his nature by analogy with the subject's own experience. It is a
thought to much wider currents of thinking than what are familiar kind of argument, common in late-nineteenth-
often held to be the rather narrow and dated concerns of century psychology and anthropology. Vischer first discusses
late-nineteenth-century physiological psychology. Specifically, symbol formation within the context of his analysis of dreams,
the concept of "mimesis" as presented here connects Vischer and his argument draws heavily on Eduard von Hartmann's
with philosophers such as Max Scheler, Walter Benjamin, Philosophie des Unbewussten (Philosophy of the Unconscious)
Wilhelm Worringer, and even Theodor Adorno, for whom a and Karl Scherner's Das Leben des Traums (The Life of the
fundamental level of experience consists of a mimetic passing Dream).27 Above all, argues Vischer, it is in dreams that
over into the object. This is a theme to which I shall return later; at physical stimuli are translated into empathic symbols: "I
present it is important merely to note that Vischer, and by stimulate, on the basis of simple nerve sensations, a fixed
extension Warburg, through their attention to identification, form that symbolises my body.... It does not matter whether
or mimesis, have a far greater community of interest with the object is imagined or actually perceived: as soon as our
twentieth-century philosophy than is usually acknowledged. idea of the self is projected into it, it always becomes an
Vischer's brief discussion of the central role of similarity is imagined object" (Vischer, 101). This account of symbol
further developed through consideration of the body as the formation in dreams becomes the model for empathic symbol
measure of (dis)similarity. Much of his argument is marked by formation in general, a highly significant move. For if myth-
the materialist discourse I have outlined above, and this making is seen as a primal form of symbol construction,
accords with Vischer's avowed aim of establishing the physi- Vischer is engaging in a typically early modern equation of
ological basis of the psychology of aesthetic experience. the unconscious with the mythic, and ultimately the uncon-
Vischer. See Wind, Art and Anarchy, Oxford, 1985, 46, 127. history of German philosophy remains Herbert SchnTdelbach, Philosophy zn
21.Johann Friedrich Herbart, Psychologie als Wissenschaft, [K6nigsberg, Germany 1831-1933, trans. E. Matthews, Cambridge, 1983. See also Michael
1824-25], in SaimtlzcheW erke,e d. Karl Kehrbach, Langensalza, 1897-1912, v, Podro, TheM anifold in Perception:T heorieso fArt from Kant to Hildebrand, Oxford,
219. 1972, 61-91.
22. Ibid., vi, 90. 26. Hermann Lotze, Outlznes of Aesthetics, trans. and ed. G. Ladd, Boston,
23. Ibid., vi, 101. 1885, 20, 23.
24. Adolf Hildebrand, The Problem of Form in the Fine Arts, in Mallgrave and 27. Eduard von Hartmann, Philosophzed es Unbewussten: Versuche zner Weltan-
Ikonomou, 1994, 227-79. schauung, Berlin, 1869; Karl Scherner, Das Leben des Traums, Berlin, 1861.
25. The best general account of this somewhat neglected period in the
46 ART BULLETIN MARCH 1997 VOLUME LXXIX NUMBER 1
scious with the primitive. As Vischer notes, "in the mythical also the case that their positions diverge considerably in key
world we are of course, not dealing merely with playful respects, a divergence all the more notable given that they
groping and attachment but with ideal primeval inten- both invest the Renaissance with a similar importance as a
tions.... the natural emotions are filled with mythical con- critical juncture in the emergence of modernity.
tent" (Vischer, 111). For Nietzsche, one of the foremost characteristics of moder-
This constellation of ideas is of significance not only in the nity is the hypertrophy of Socratic culture. What Nietzsche
interpretation of Vischer but, more important, also as a means with this phrase is the classifying discourse of logic,
means of understanding Vischer's relevance to Warburg. marked by the impulse to categorize and to strive for scientific
Warburg's consuming passion is in the tracing of the life of intelligibility. Although finding its origins in Socrates the
symbols from their primitive empathic origins, and the Athenian, this stands in marked contrast to the traditional
equation of the primitive with the unconscious and the dream wisdom of the Greeks, which acknowledged the necessity of a
explains why in his later work Warburg engages with the Dionysian excess of meaning opening out onto the "abyss" of
psychological studies of Richard Semon and Tito Vignoli.28 I Being. When comparing Nietzsche and Warburg, the key
shall analyze more closely the way in which Warburg makes moment is to be found in Nietzsche's comments on opera as
use of Vischer's theory of empathic symbolism and, in an attempt to resurrect Greek tragedy. For while opera was a
particular, how it applies to his interpretation of the Renais- Renaissance reconstitution of tragedy, Nietzsche argues that
sance later on. Before doing so, however, it is important first in contrast with tragedy, in which music and words form a
to engage once more in a discussion of the Botticelli disserta- totality, opera imposes a Socratic will to intelligibility on the
tion, especially to explore its links with Warburg's other operatic form, specifically through the stile rappresentativo,
papers on the Renaissance. which subordinates music to verbal intelligibility. Music, the
Dionysian art form par excellence, gives way to discourse. As
In his study of Botticelli and, specifically, in his exploration of Nietzsche argues, "Opera is the offspring of theoretical man
the role of the "bewegtes Beiwerk" in the two paintings under ... not the artist.... It was truly unmusical listeners who
discussion, Warburg is attempting more than simply an art demanded that the words should be understood above all
historical interpretation. By bringing out the parallels be- else." 1 Thus, the inversion in opera of the original function
tween Primavera, TheB irth of Venus,a nd various other phenom- of Greek tragedy, which formed an occasion for loss of self in
ena of quattrocento Florentine culture, such as the poetry of the face of a vision of Dionysian excess, symbolizes for
Poliziano or the sculpture of Agostino di Duccio, Warburg is Nietzsche the more general conflict between the scientific,
reading Botticelli's work as a microcosm of Renaissance Socratic values of modernity and the Dionysian wisdom of the
Florence. Specifically, the focus of his research is the dialecti- Greeks, which the young Nietzsche believed was being brought
cal nature of the Renaissance appropriation of antiquity, back to life in the Wagnerian "Gesamtkunstwerk."
combining a "still grandeur" with a much more animated, I have drawn attention to the issue of opera because in one
ecstatic vision inspired by the Bacchanalian excess of the of his lesser-known papers Warburg discusses the early history
maenads of Dionysus. This dialectical vision accounts for the of opera, attending to much the same issues as Nietzsche,
simultaneous presence in Botticelli's Primavera of the still though reaching somewhat different conclusions from the
figure of Venus and of the windswept nymph Flora, with her earlier thinker. In "The Theatrical Costumes for the Inter-
counterpart in the three dancing Graces. This vision also mezzi of 1589" Warburg examines the pageant staged in May
explains the intrusion in the otherwise dignified narrative of 1589 by Count Giovanni de' Bardi and Giacopo Peri in honor
Ghirlandaio's Birth of Saint John the Baptist of the bustling of the wedding of Grand Duke Ferdinand de' Medici to
"ninfa fiorentina," whom Warburg discusses in his fictitious Christine of Lorraine.32 Warburg's attention is drawn both to
correspondence with his friend Andr Jolles around 1900.29 the productive "misappropriation" of classical motifs and
A crucial influence on Warburg's interpretation of the also to the subsequent attempt by Peri in 1594 to reinvent
Renaissance is Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy,a s has been tragedy in his opera Dafne.
widely recognized. Indeed, Warburg was a much more careful The object of interest in Warburg's account is the contrast
and sympathetic reader of Nietzsche than many would admit; between the first and third intermezzi. Music served as the
as Margaret Iversen has argued, while Gombrich acknowl- overarching theme uniting all six intermezzi; in particular,
edges the influence of Nietzsche, he is also at pains to read intermezzi 2, 3, and 4 consisted of Neoplatonic allegorical
Warburg as ultimately privileging the rational and ordered at tableaux representing the cosmic significance of music,
the expense of the irrational, the ecstatic.30 There is a very whereas the others were episodes from classical myth con-
obvious coincidence of interests between Warburg and Nietz- cerned with the psychological effects of music. Following the
sche in their reading of antiquity and the Renaissance, but it is contemporary description by Sebastiano de' Rossi, one of the
28. The key works here are Richard Semon, Dze Mneme als erhaltendesP rznzip See Warburg, 1992, 593. Gombrich quotes extensively from the contents in
zm Wechseld es organischen Geschehens,2 d ed., Leipzig, 1904, and Tito Vignoli, Gombrich, 107-27.
Mzto e Sczenza, Milan, 1879. Vignoli's book was translated into German very 30. Iversen, 1993 (as in n. 9). Iversen also criticizes Panofsky for a similar
shortly after publication as Mythus und Wzssenschaft,e zne Studze, Leipzig, 1880. process of "de-problematising" Warburg. Panofsky's essay on Diirer and
Gombrich discusses these authors in Gombnch, 68-72, 242-43. antiquity, while frequently referring to Warburg's "Durer and the Italian
29. The unpublished fragmentary notes and letters forming the "correspon- Antique," removes all sense of tension or dialectic by promoting the
dence" are gathered together in a folder dating from 1900 entitled "Ninfa reconciliation of opposites. Panofsky notes, for example, "the Italian Quat-
Fiorentina," in the Warburg Institute. The folder in question corresponds to trocento was impressed and excited by the 'tragic unrest' of the Antique
items 118 1-2 of Section Iv of Wuttke's listing of the Archives of the Institute.
ABY WARBURG'S THEORY OF ART 47
organizers, it appears that the first intermezzo was a tableau tally nonaesthetic drive to scientific intelligibility, and for him
representing the harmony of the spheres. This tableau bore opera represents a use of classical forms to impoverished
all the hallmarks of Baroque spectacle coupled with an excess ends. Warburg's position is rather more complex, stemming
of humanist Neoplatonic allegory, in contrast with the third from a different evaluation. Critical of the one-sided perspec-
intermezzo, which represented Apollo's slaying of the Python tive of a Winckelmann, he stresses the presence of both a
and employed choral accompaniment in very obvious refer- sentimental (Dionysian) pathos and classical humanist learn-
ence to Greek tragedy. Warburg sees in this contrast another ing, the intermezzi occupying the point of intersection of the
symptom of the dialectic of Renaissance culture, which two. This emphasis on the dialectics of the Renaissance is
oscillates between a Dionysian pathos and an all too evident sustained in many of Warburg's other articles on the period.
humanist learning, both of which represent the two cultural In "Diirer and the Italian Antique," for example, he writes
extremes: on the one hand, the reawakening of Greek tragic that "already in the second half of the fifteenth century
culture and, on the other, the self-conscious conceit of Italian artists searched in the treasury of antique forms for
Baroque allegorizing. He notes, for example, that spectators models for the mimesis of both a heightened pathos and also
who gave contemporary descriptions of the intermezzi com- a classic-idealizing tranquillity" (Warburg, 1992, 125). This
pletely missed the allegorical signification of the first inter- peculiar duality stems ultimately from the complex nature of
mezzo. In contrast, in the third intermezzo, in order to attract Florentine society itself, of which Warburg writes in "Portrai-
the interest of the audience, Bardi resorted to drama, one ture and the Florentine Bourgeoisie" of 1902, "The quite
might even say melodrama: "here a dramatic content was heterogeneous qualities of the medieval Christian, knightly
incorporated, which could arouse the interest of the unedu- romantic or classical-platonising idealist and the worldly,
cated public through fear and sympathy: that was the chorus Tuscan-heathen practical merchant interpenetrate and achieve
of Delphians ... which had to accompany the fight with the unity...." (Warburg, 1992, 74). In the discussion of the
python through word, song and pantomime" (Warburg, intermezzi and early opera of the late sixteenth century a
1932, I, 434). different duality has been established. This should come as no
Unlike Nietzsche, Warburg does not see, with reference to surprise, given that a hundred years have passed and that this
the intermezzi, cultural redemption either in the rebirth of a period hardly counts as the Renaissance anymore. The
pure Dionysian culture or in the suppression of the Dionysian dialectic here is not between the Dionysian-pagan and Apollo-
through the highly artificial language of humanist allegory. nian-idealist; instead, it is between the Dionysian and the
The same is true, for Warburg, of the opera Dafne, whose Baroque spectacle of allegory. In contrast to Nietzsche, the
innovation of the monodic stile recitativo, so heavily criticized Dionysian impulse for Warburg is not opposed to a lack of
by Nietzsche, represents an interplay of classical content and artistry so much as to its hypertrophy-a self-conscious use of
Florentine humanist learning. Far from constituting a loss of
symbolic forms emphasizing the intervention of human
aesthetic sensibility, as Nietzsche claims, the growth of opera
artifice. This change is highly significant, since it will inform
is rather to be seen as a creative "misuse" of classical motifs to
Warburg's general account of modernity, to which I shall
form a new self-conscious aesthetic-symbolic language with
return later.
transformed expressive capacities.33 Warburg notes,
In general, then, Warburg is suspending the kind of
It was certainly one of the main tasks of the classicising judgment made by Nietzsche, since he does not share Nietz-
Riforma Melodrammaticat o get rid of Baroque artificiality sche's metaphysics of culture whereby the Greeks are extraor-
not only in madrigalesque music but also in the external dinarily privileged. It would be wrong, however, to see
frills which absorbed so much of the energy of inventors, Warburg as interested merely in the historical details of
artists and tailors. But this reaction did not lead away from Renaissance (and Mannerist) culture, as if his aim were
the classical authors; on the contrary.. . the Florentines merely to correct hitherto partial pictures. To recall, the
declared aim of his doctoral dissertation is to make a
... searched so long in the ancient authors until they
believed they had found there what they really owed only contribution to empathy theory. Hence, his work has a
to their own genius, the tragedia in musica and the stile philosophical foundation, according to which it theorizes the
recitativo.34 dialectics of the Renaissance through the notion of empathy.
At this point, therefore, it is necessary to return once more to
Between Nietzsche and Warburg, therefore, there is obvi- the work of Vischer, in order to draw out the character of
ously much in common, the most important feature being a Warburg's engagement with the theory of empathy.
shared recognition of the dialectical character of the Renais-
sance. Nietzsche sees the Renaissance as revolving around the As I indicated earlier, the focus of Vischer's theory of empathy
polar opposites of a Dionysian classical legacy and a fundamen- is the tendency of the subject to identify with the object, a
"
before it could appreciate and abandon itself to its 'classical calm.' 1589," this essay is not included in Warburg, 1992. See Warburg, 1932, I, 259 ff.
Warburg's own essay explicitly attacks the "one-sided classicising doctrine of The German translation, excluding the quotations from contemporary
'still grandeur' " (Warburg, 1992, 125). See Erwin Panofsky, "Albrecht Difrer sources used in the original version, appears in the same volume, 422-38.
and Classical Antiquity," in Meanzng zn the Visual Arts, Harmondsworth, 1970, 33. A similar point is made by Helmut Pfotenhauer, who examines the issue
277-339. in much greater depth. See Pfotenhauer, "Das Nachleben der Antike: Aby
31. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Bzrth of Tragedy, trans. S. Whiteside, ed. M. Warburgs Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsche," Nzetzsche Studzen, xIv, 1985,
Tanner, Harmondsworth, 1993, 91. 298-313.
32. First published in Italian as "I Costumi Teatrali per gli Intermezzi del 34. Warburg, 1932, I, 437.
48 ART BULLETIN MARCH 1997 VOLUME LXXIX NUMBER 1
passing over into the other that results in a negation of the reduce those formations to any single principle, leading to his
self. Central to this mimetic process is the body, which dialectical understanding of the Renaissance, which he sees
functions as a common measure of comparison by which the reproduced in Renaissance imagery. Indeed, one could argue
object is invested with the qualities of subjective embodied that Warburg's most sensitive follower was Walter Benjamin,
experience. Furthermore, this comparison through the me- whose theories of the symbol and of historical inquiry closely
dium of the body is possible on the basis of the subjective resemble Warburg's own.3s Moreover, Warburg's understand-
imaginative capacity to symbolize; it is by virtue of the symbol ing of the symbol takes the notion still further by virtue of
that two or more heterogeneous elements can be literally the fact that in his work the image does not simply act as
thrown together on the basis of some perceived similarity. the archive of a specific historical experience, it also bears the
Clearly, Warburg's account of Renaissance culture owes much imprint of that experience. What I mean by this is that the
to this theory, most particularly in his attention to the image, as a symbol of the empathic projection onto the other,
Dionysiac element at the birth of classical culture and the itself becomest he empathized other. The symbolic representa-
Renaissance refashioning of it. The idea of the Dionysiac is tion loses its symbolic quality, the distinction between the
introduced in the reference to the "bewegtes Beiwerk" in the image and its symbolized object is collapsed, and the image is
Botticelli dissertation, where the importance of bodily move- subject to the same empathic identification as its represented
ment has very clear parallels with Vischer's stress on the object.
empathic projection of embodied experience onto the object. Warburg's understanding of the symbol derives from Ro-
What Warburg introduces in his dissertation is then discussed mantic theories of literary symbolism and, as will become
elsewhere, for example, in his study on "Diirer and the Italian clear later, their concomitant denigration of allegory. In
Antique," which explores the various treatments in the particular, the symbol was held to be embodied in the work of
Renaissance of that most Dionysiac of classical myths, the art; indeed, beauty itself was thought to appear only in the
death of Orpheus. Warburg's adoption of Vischer's theory is symbol. In his Doctrine of the Gods Karl Philip Moritz argues
thus extended in two ways. First, Vischer's comments on the that in the work of art "we find total opposites brought
role of symbolism are given much greater weight, and second, together," which "renders that poetry beautiful and it be-
the phenomenon of empathy (and its symbolism) is histori- comes here, as it were, a higher language which combines in a
cized. I shall deal with each in turn. single expression a good number of concepts that resound
It has all too frequently been assumed, as I suggested harmoniously together whereas elsewhere they are dispersed
earlier, that Warburg's method rests on a concept of the and separate." 39 Moritz's theory of beauty as the harmony of
image, or, indeed, any symbolic representation, as symptom- opposites is repeated elsewhere, for example, in his claim that
atic of wider social practices and discursive formations. "I view the [beautiful object] as something that finds comple-
Gombrich refers to the precedent of Hippolyte Taine, whose tion not in me, but in itself, something that forms a self-
work aimed at the construction of a historical intellectual contained totality and gives me pleasure for its own sake."'4 In
"milieu" without the metaphysical weight attached to Hege- other words, the symbolic work of art presents a formal unity,
lian notions of a "Zeitgeist."'35P arallels have also been drawn resulting from a dialectical synthesis of opposites, a view
with Gottfried Leibniz, whose monads, interiorizing the repeated in Friedrich Schelling's argument that "An infinite
world, seem to prefigure Warburg's idea of the symbol.36 In dichotomy of opposed activities ... is ... the basis of every
fact, while these writers undoubtedly have a significant bear- aesthetic production and by each individual manifestation of
ing on Warburg, one need only look to contemporary art it is wholly resolved.'"41 Moreover, as Moritz indicates, the
historians of art such as W61fflin, Riegl, or Max Dvorak for a symbol not only presents a formal unity of opposites, it is also
similar approach to the social function of the image. For indivisible from its referent, in contrast with allegory, in which
example, Riegl's historical grammar of the arts quite clearly allegorical form and content are external to one another.
relates the formal syntactic and morphological features of a This theme recurs throughout the aesthetic theory of the
period style to wider extra-aesthetic beliefs,37 and W6lfflin's time. In his "Doctrine of Art," for example, August Wilhelm
Principles of Art History quite clearly operates according to the von Schlegel writes that "language passes from pure expres-
notion of period-specific ways of seeing and their exemplifica- sion to arbitrary usage for the purpose of representation, but
tion in individual works of art. Such approaches to art were when arbitrariness becomes its dominant feature ... lan-
common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, guage is no longer anything but a collection of logical
even if a Hegelian metaphysics of culture had been discarded. ciphers."42 Similarly, Schelling notes that "Each figure in
Where Warburg's thought diverges from that of his contempo- mythology is to be taken for what it is, for it is precisely in this
raries (and followers such as Panofsky) is in his refusal to way that it will be taken for what it signifies. The signifying
35. Gombrich is, of course, hostile to Hegel and is thus keen to dissociate subjective interiority in late Roman art.
Warburg and Hegel. See Ernst Gombrich, "In Search of Cultural Tradition," 38. See especially Walter Benjamin's The Orngin of German Tragic Drama,
in Ideals and Idols, Oxford, 1979, 24-59. 1985.
36. See William Heckscher, "PetztesP erceptzonsA: n Account of sortes Warburgi- 39. Karl Ph. Moritz, Gbtterlehreo, der mythologzscheD zchtungen der Alten, Lahr,
anae," in Art and Lzterature.S tudzesz n Relatzonshzp,B aden-Baden, 1985, 435-80. 1948, 101-2.
37. Riegl's concept of the "Kunstwollen" is supposed to indicate the 40. Karl Ph. Moritz, "Versuch einer Vereinigung aller schonen Kuinste und
autonomy of art, but in the final section of Late Roman Art Industry (as in n. 6), Wissenschaften unter dem Begriff des in sich selbst Vollendeten," in Schnften
Riegl argues for parallels between the rise of Christianity and the emphasis on zur Aesthetiku nd Poetzk,T ubingen, 1962, 3
ABY WARBURG'S THEORY OF ART 49
;ir
r~ 44'
................... .....
.?t~l~I L
Ir v
vi z?
3 Domenico Ghirlandaio,
Foundingo f the Ordero f Saint
Francisb yP opeH onoriusI II.
Florence, Santa Trinita
(photo: Witt Library)
here is at the same time the being itself, it has passed into the wax voti, which he interprets as a continuation of pagan cult
object."43 practices: "Through the practice of votive offerings to sacred
It is perhaps no coincidence that Warburg's own interest in images, the Catholic church had, with penetrating insight,
the role of the symbol in art developed at the same time as the provided converted pagans with a legitimate mode of expres-
late-nineteenth-century revival of such Romantic theories of sion for the ineradicable primal religious impulse to ap-
symbolism, language, and allegory, most obviously in the art proach the divine ... and this could be done either in person
theories of the Symbolists, for example, in Charles Baude- or in the form of a representation" (Warburg, 1992, 73).
laire's doctrine of "correspondences." In this regard it is Mention of the atavism of wax voti introduces the second
important to take note, too, of Walter Benjamin's interest in way in which Warburg extends Robert Vischer's essay, namely,
precisely this aspect of Baudelaire in articulating his own by historicizing the phenomenon of empathy. Gombrich has
theory of "aura."44 In his discussion of Domenico Ghirlan- argued that the widespread influence of Darwinism and the
daio's Founding of the Ordero f Saint Francis by Pope Honorius III general acceptance of the theory of evolution were significant
in Santa Trinita (Fig. 3), Warburg notes, "The modest for Warburg in this regard.45 Certainly, their importance
privilege of the donor to piously occupy a corner of the image cannot be overlooked, but as Edgar Wind has forcefully
is expanded by Ghirlandaio and his client without a second argued, one can locate a much more specific source for
thought into the right of their corporeal likeness to enter Warburg's conceptual system, namely, the essay "Das Symbol"
freely into the sacred event as a spectator or even as an actor by Friedrich Vischer, on the basis of which Warburg con-
in the story" (Warburg, 1992, 71). The fact that all the figures structs a historical typology of orders of representation.46 In
in the foreground can be identified as various members of the this respect it is significant that Friedrich Vischer's essay is
Sassetti and Medici households, Warburg argues, indicates mentioned immediately after Robert Vischer's treatise in the
the loss of the sense of historical and symbolic distance preface to the Botticelli dissertation. For the elder Vischer,
between viewer and representation. symbolic representation oscillates between two polarities, the
In the same study Warburg also notes a parallel process in one magical-associative, where the symbol and the symbolized
the enormous growth in popularity during the Renaissance of merge, and the other logical-dissociative, in which a relation
41. Friedrich Schelling, quoted in Tzvetan Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, Tallahassee, Fla., 1983.
trans. C. Porter, Oxford, 1982, 185. 45. See Gombrich, "Aby Warburg und der Evolutionismus des 19. Jahrhun-
42. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, quoted in Todorov (as in n. 41), 178. derts," in Galitz and Reimers (as in n. 10), 52-73.
43. Friedrich Schelling, Simmtliche Werke,S tuttgart, 1856-68, I Abteilung, v, 46. Edgar Wind, "Warburg's Concept of Kulturwissenschaft," in Wind (as in
411. n. 18), 26 ff. Vischer's original essay appears in PhilosophischeA ufsdtze, Eduard
44. On Benjamin's theory of aura, see Marlene Stoessel, Aura: Des Vergessene Zeller zu seinem 50 jdhrigen Doctor-Jubildumg ewidmet, ed. F. T. Vischer, Leipzig,
Menschliche,M unich, 1983. For a general account of histories of the symbolic 1887, 153-93. Gombrich also mentions the influence of Vischer, though he
see Todorov (as in n. 41) and Hazard Adams, Philosophyo f the Literary Symbolic, gives it less prominence than does Wind. See Gombrich, 72-75.