From Symbol to Allegory: Aby Warburg's Theory of Art Author(S): Matthew Rampley Reviewed Work(S): Source: the Art Bulletin, Vol
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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 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3046229 . Accessed: 14/05/2012 07:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. College Art Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Art Bulletin. http://www.jstor.org From Symbol to Allegory: Aby Warburg's Theory of Art MatthewRampley 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 Gruppenportrdtand 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 CritzcalHistorians ofArt, New Haven, 1982. Akten des InternatzonalenSymposions Hamburg 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,London, 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 Iconographyat the Crossroads,ed. Brendan Cassidy, Princeton, N.J., 1993, 17-25. Panofsky, Perspectiveas SymbolicForm, 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, GesammelteSchrften, 5. Alois Riegl, Problemsof 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 Gruppenportrtithave recently ap- mann, Georg Syamken, and Martin Warnke, eds., Die Menschenrechtedes Auges: peared in OctobergLXXIV, 1995, 3-35. UberAby Warburg,Frankfurt am Main, 1980; Martin Jesinghausen-Lauster, Die 7. Both Michael Podro and Heinrich Dilly have asked just this question, Suche nach der SymbolischenForm: Der Kreis um dze kulturwzssenschaftlicheBzbliothek 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, Nzetzscheund Burckhardt, K6nigstein, 1985; Roland Kany, Mnemosyne Michael Podro, "Art History and the Concept of Art," in Kategonen und als Programm:Geschichte, Erinnerung und dzeAndacht zm Werkvon Usener;Warburg Methoden der deutschen Kunstgeschichte 1900-1930, ed. Lorenz Dittmann, Stutt- und Benjamzn, Tilbingen, 1987; Dorothee Bauerle, Gespenstergeschichtenfuir gart, 1985, 209-17. Ganz Erwachsene:Ezn Kommentarzu Aby WarburgsBilderatlas Mnemosyne,Mlinster, 8. Ernst Gombrich, Aby Warburg:An Intellectual Biography,2d ed., 1986. 1988; Roland Kany, Die relzgionsgeschichtlicheForschung an derKulturwissenschaftlz- 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,Panofsky 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 FrankfurterSchule und Kunstgeschichte,ed. 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 KzinstlenscherAustausch/Artzstzc Exchange Akten des xxvIwInternatio- tions of Iversen and Peter Burke to the Warburg Conference of 1990. See nalen Kongressesftir 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,