WARBURG C Iconology of The Interval-Libre

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Iconology of the interval: Aby Warburg's legacy

Mat t hewa Rampley
To cite this article: Mat t hewa Rampley (2001) Iconology of t he int erval: Aby Warburg's legacy, Word & Image: A Journal of
Verbal/ Visual Enquiry, 17:4, 303-324, DOI: 10.1080/ 02666286.2001.10435723
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Iconology of the interval: Aby
Warburg's legacy
Downloaded by [University of Birmingham] at 08:08 23 October 2013
MATTHEW RAMPLEY
1 - The term 'iconology' predated

Warburg by many centuries. In the
si..xteenth century 'iconology' referred to
the identification of allegorical and
symbolical figures, for which a number of
iconological manuals were produced. The
most famous was perhaps Cesare Ripa's
lcorlOlogia (Rome, 1593). The term
remained in LIse throughout the following
centuries, usually being indistin.guishable
from 'iconography'. Until the late
nineteenth century the terms 'iconology'
and 'iconography' denoted a tool for use
by artists, and this was thc function of the
iconological manuals. The attempt to reestablish iconography on a scientific basis
as an art-historical method of
interpretation was first undertaken by the
French art historian Eugene Muntz.
Having already completed a study on The
History oj Art During the Renaissance (Paris,
1895), which made use of iconographical
research, Muntz delivered a paper to the
International Congress in Art History of
1898 on The Necessity ofIconographical
Research'. This also led to the founding in
1902 of the 'International Society for
Iconographic Study'. See Peter Schmidt,
A b), lvI. vVarhurg und die lkonologie
(Wiesbaden, 1989). See, also, Jan
Bialostocki, 'Iconography and Ieonology',
in Encydopaedia of H'orld Art (New York,
1963), VII, pp. 769-85; William
Heckscher, 'The Genesis ofIconology', in
Heckscher, Art and Literature, Studies in
Relationship, ed. E. Verhey en (Baden
Baden, 1985) pp. 253-81.
2 - The contemporary importance of
iconology and the issues it raises is made
evident by the continued publication of
works on the subject. See, for example,
Brendan Cassidy, ed., lconologv at the
Crossroads (Princeton, 1993); W . .1. T.
Nlitchell, leonologv (Chicago, 1986).
WORD &
IMAGE. VOL.
17.
It has long been recognized that Aby \I\Tarburg played a central role,
perhaps even the central role, in elevating the role of iconology in Art
History. Having been traditionally regarded as an ancillary activity, iconological interpretation came to displace the concern with aesthetic form and
style predominant in late nineteenth-century art historical discourse. I
Through the work of collaborators, students and followers such as Fritz
Saxl, Edgar \l\Tind, Erwin Panofsky or Ernst Gombrich, iconology became,
from the I930S onwards, established as a canonical method in art historical
interpretation. Although semiological, psychoanalytical and culturalmaterialist interpretations have subsequently dislodged iconology from its
central place in the practice of Art History, iconology still maintains
prominence in much contemporary scholarship.' Indeed, while iconological
methods are often regarded as the culmination of the bourgeois tradition of
scholarship in Art History, it has also been argued that iconology, especially
as formulated by Warburg's student Panofsky, in many ways anticipated
subsequent theoretical positions, in particular, the semiological analysis of
images. 3 However, although the idea of the iconological 'method' is
common currency, its origins in the writings of Warburg have become
largely obscured. The reasons for this are quite clear. Until the recent translation of The Renewal of Pagan Antiquiry, most of \l\Tarburg's work has
remained inaccessible to anglophone readers, and those few other writings
already translated lie scattered across a variety of different publications.'
Furthermore, the bulk of his work remains unpublished even in German:
the texts gathered together for the publication, in I932, of Die Emeuerung der
heidnischen Antike, the first two volumes of a projected six-volume edition of
\l\Tarburg's work, constitute only a small proportion of his total output.')
Consequently Warburg's work, though acknowledged as ground-breaking,
has tended to be eclipsed by the more voluminous writings of Panofsky,
Wittkower and others.
The appearance, therefore, of The Renewal of Pagan Alltiquiry, presents an
opportune moment to reassess the legacy of \I\T arburg, and in this article I
intend to examine in particular his notion of iconology. As I shall indicate,
there are important differences between \l\Tarburg's understanding of
iconology and better known formulations of the concept, such as that of
Panofsky; these differences have often been overlooked as the thought of the
one has become assimilated to that of the other. I do not raise this merely in
order to offer a corrective to the reading of War burg. Rather, my intention
is to draw out the distinct implications of Warburg's thinking, and to
examine the critical issues raised as its intellectual legacy. In particular, a
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central focus of War burg's writing was what he termed the 'iconology of the
interval', a conception of iconology intimately connected with questions of
representation, spectatorship and cultural memory.6 Accordingly, I shall
first discuss his conception of iconology before examining in turn his
treatment of the questions of subjectivity and memory.
Iconology of the interval
The iconological method is most immediately and most often associated
with vVarburg's student Panofsky. In Studies ill lconology Panofsky lays out his
famous tripartite schema of natural, iconographic and iconologicallevels of
interpretation.? In particular, using the example of a man offering a
greeting with his hat, Panofsky distinguishes between the putatively natural
recognition of the main raising his hat, the socially embedded meaning, or
iconography, of the gesture of raising a hat in mid-twentieth-century
Europe, and the iconological meaning of the gesture, in which it is set
against a background of implicit values and assumptions, including
knowledge of the character of the man in question. In terms of visual representations these three levels of interpretation correspond to three strata of
meaning or content within the representation, namely, primary or natural
subject-matter, secondary or conventional subject-matter, and intrinsic
meanmg.
Panofsky's tripartite scheme is open to a variety of criticisms. First, it has
become commonplace to point out that the notion of a 'natural' level of
interpretation is highly problematic. s Second, while the meaning of the
distinction between iconographical and iconological analysis is perhaps clear
in the simplified example of the man raising his hat, Pan ofsky himself
frequently elides the difference between the two in his actual historical interpretations. His study of early Netherlandish painting, for example, focuses
on the presence of socially encoded moti5 and themes, and largely fails to
explore the dimension of tacit symbolism and values that would inform the
'intrinsic meaning'. 9 Hence, while 'iconology' analyses the unconscious
assumption of symbolic codes and meanings, Panofsky's studies tend to focus
on the conscious artistic use of symbols and conventions. Despite such
weaknesses, Panofsky's method offered a crucial art historical insight,
namely, recognition of the social mediation of pictorial meaning. Thus, the
iconological interpretation attends to the presence of visual symbols and
their conventionalized meanings, coupled with an examination of parallels
in other cultural practices such as literature, philosophy, law and so forth.
In this, Panofsky was also indebted to Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of
symbolic forms, though only following through the full implications of the
latter's historicized Kantianism in a few essays, such as his studies of perspective or proportion.
It is possible to perceive an affinity between Panofsky's notion of
iconology as the study of the social mediation of pictorial representation and
the Marxist attention to the ideological determinants of the visual arts.
Iconology can thus be regarded as a form of ideological analysis, albeit
without the materialist basis of Marxist strategies. Furthermore, Panofsky's
iconology takes part in the wider shift that has occurred in the Humanities
and the Social Sciences, namely, the spatialization of culture. In the
nineteenth century culture was primarily viewed in historical, genetic terms,
I
304
(J
MATTHEW RAMPLEY
3 - See, for example, Michael Ann Holly,

PanoJsky and the Foundations oj Art
(Ithaca, 1984) p. 181 ff.: Giulio Argan,

'Ideology and Iconology', Critical
2
(1975), pp. 297-3 0 5.
4 - Aby vVarburg, The Renewal oJPagan
Antiqui!v, trans. David Britt (Los Angeles,
1999). Other translations of War burg's
work into English include 'The Entry of
the Idealising Classical Style in the
Painting of the Early Renaissance in
Florence', trans. Matthew Rampley, in
Aby Warburg, cd. Richard Woodfield (New
York, forthcoming); InzagesJrom the Region
oj the PIleblo Indian" q( North America, trans.
Michael Steinberg (Ithaca, 1995): 'Italian
Art and International Astrology in the
Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara', trans.
Peter \'Vortsman, in German 1<-ssays Oil Art
HistolY, ed. Gert Schiff (New York, 1988)
pp. 234-54, Sir Ernst Gombrich's
monograph on Warburg still offers a rich
source of textual material, in both German
and English translation, unavailable
elsewhere. See Gombrich, Aby Warbuig. An
Intelledual Biograph), (London, 2nd edn,
1986 ).
5 - Aby Warburg, Gesammelte SdlriJien. Die
Emeuerung de,. heidnischen Antike (Leipzig
and Berlin, 1932). According to Fritz Saxl
the remaining five volumes of the project
complete edition would have been: Vol. 2:
The 'Mnemosyne' Atlas and
accompanying materials; Vol. 3:
unpublished Lectures and Shorter Essays;
Vol. 4: Fragments on the 'Anthropological
Science of Expression'; Vol. 5: Letters,
Aphorisms and Autobiographical
Writings; Vol. 6: the Catalogue of
Warburg's Library. Die Emeuenmg der
heidnis"hen Antike has recently been
repu blished as part of a renewed project of
the complete works of War burg.
6 - vVarburg uses the phrase' Iconology of
the Interva]", 'Ikonologie des
Zwischenraumes' in a draft Introduction
to his AlnenlOsyne project. Warburg
Archive, \"'arburg Institute, No. 102.1.2,
p.6.
7 - Erwin Panofsky, Studi,,' in Iconology
(Oxford, 1939) pp. 3-31.
8 - This was already recognized as
problematic by Alois Riegl, who pointed
out that perception is historically and
culturally variable, and that consequently
representation can never be traced

back to some putative natural state of
vision. See Riegl, Sptrmische Kunstindustrie
(Darmstadt [1905J, 1992) pp. 1-22. More
recently, this idea has come under the
most persistent criticism from the
perspective of the semiology of the image.
Sec Norman Bryson, l'ision and Painting.
The Logic oj the Ga.;:e (London, 1983).
9 - Erwin Pan ofsky , Earll' Netherlalldish

Painting (New York, 1971).
IO - See, for example, Perspective as
Form, trans. Christopher vYood (New
York, 1992); 'The History of the Theory of
Human Proportions as a Reflection of the
History of Styles', in AIearlillg ,'" the Visual
Arts (Harmondsworth, 1970) pp. 82-138.
Cassircr enjoyed a close reI a tionshi p with
Warburg and his library. Although
Warburg had already developed most of
his ideas by the time he met Cassirer, he
was aware of the striking parallels between
their projects. See Silvia Feretti, Cass;r,r,
Panofskl' and Warburg: Sl'mbol, Art and
Hislor}, trans. R. Pierce (New Haven,
1989); Jiirgen Habennas, 'Die befreiende
Kraft der symbolischen Formgebung.
Ernst Cassirers humanistisches Erbe und
die Bibliothek vYarburg', in Vortriige ails
dem TYarburg-HanI, Vol. I (Berlin, 1997)
PP3- 2 9
I I - Aby Warburg, 'Sandro Botticelli's
Birth of Venus and Spring', in Warburg, The
Renewal of Pagan Antiqui(v, pp. 89-'56. This
will be referred to as Renewal.
12 - Warburg, 'Pagan-Antique Prophecy
in Words and Imag'es in the Age of
Luther', in Warburg, Renewal, pp. 597697
'3 - \,yarburg, 'Italienische Antike im

Zeitalter Rembrandts', Warburg Archive,
Warburg Institute, No. 97.2.
14 - Warburg also mentions a triumphal

arch erected to celebrate the victory of
Prince Maurice at Groningen in 1584. 'A
triumphal arch on the Prinsenho[ awaited
him, at its top Neptune with his tritons,
and inside Claudius Civilis with several
Romans at his feet, vainly attempting to
escape. Beneath one could read following
verses by Spieghel: "Claudius Civilis drove
out the hard might of the Romans from
the Rhineland and the areas bordering
Batavia. Oh, may this freedom be
achieved again by the hero of Nassau'"
Warburg. 'Italienische Antike im Zeitalter
Rembrandts', p. 63.
15 - Warburg, 'Italienische Antike im
Zeitalter Rembrandts', pp. 44-5.
16 - This conception forms the basis of
Dieter ,,yuttke's reading of War burg, in
particular vYarburg's attention to
'Beiwerk', or 'incidental detail'. See
TVarbllrgs Aiethode als Anregung
\,yuttke,
und
4th edn (Wiesbaden, 1990)
p.66.
but from the early twentieth century cultural formations increasingly come
to be placed within a synchronic network of signs and symbols. Although
Panofsky does not use such terminology, his notion of iconology can be seen
as anticipating a conception of culture as a symbolic or discursive space, and
it is undoubtedly on account of this that parallels have been drawn between
iconology and semiology.
The precedent for Panofsky's interpretation of iconology can be seen in
many of the writings of Aby Warburg. His doctoral study of Botti celli's Birth
oj Venus and Primavera presents an exemplary case of careful, attentive reconstruction of the cultural milieu, Quattrocento Florence, within which Botticelli's paintings were produced.!! In that study, Warburg reconstructs the
discourse of Antiquity current in Renaissance Florence, drawing on a
variety of other cultural documents of the time, including the poetry of
writers such as Angelo Poliziano and Zanobio Acciaiuoli, certain passages
from Alberti's De PictzlTa, a cassone representation of Venus and Aeneas, or a
medal struck by Niccolo Fiorentino for Lorenzo Tornabuoni.
A similar process can be seen at work in Warburg's other major study,
that of the meaning and use of astrological symbols in Reformation
Germany, in which the significance of Di.irer's famous engraving Jvfelencolia I
is set against the background of the obsession with astrology in midsixteenth-century Germany.!> In this study vVarburg explores the manifold
ways in which supposedly 'primitive' astrological beliefs persisted into the
Reformation in Germany, even among supporters of Luther, who personally
discouraged such practices. Amongst ,1\7 arburg's voluminous unpublished
writings, too, there are examples of a similar method at work. In his lecture
of I926 on 'Italian Antiquity in the Age of Rembrandt',! 3 Warburg explores
the cultural symbolism and resonance of Roman antiquity for the early
Dutch Republic, highlighting, for example, the popularity of Antonio
Tempesta's engraved illustrations of Ovid and Tacitus, or the prominence of
the mythic Batavian leader Claudius Civilis in official pageants, literary
works such as Vondel's drama The BatazJian Brothers, or in the original
decoration of the town hall of Amstndam q
The impression which a cursory reading of these texts might give, namely,
that Warburg was concerned above all with the reconstruction of the historical milieu of specific works of art, is misleading. At the beginning of the
lecture on Rembrandt's he distances himself from historicism and a vague
sense of the spirit of the age, which arises, he argues, 'all the while the
various parallels of word and image are not brought into a systematically
ordered series of luminous objects, and as long as the material and formal
connections between art and drama (whether that consists of cultic performances, mime plays, or theatre with dialogue and singing) are not seen in
the light of their mutual significance (let alone viewed together systematically'.!5 Despite his stress on a systematic method, vVarburg does not offer
a system in the manner of Panofsky; but his emphasis invites comparison
with his student, who has most often been regarded as completing much of
the work of War burg, endowing it with greater philosophical rigour.
Warburg's emphasis on the necessity of systematic method has been
viewed by some as exemplified in his painstaking attention to details,
summed up in the famous maxim that 'God is in the detail'.!6 However,
such an interpretation misrepresents Warburg's interest in culture as a
dynamic process rather than a fixed network of connections. While both

Panofsky and Warburg draw out the web of horizontal relations between
various practices wi thin one cultural space, vVarburg lays a further
emphasis on the historical axis which crosses the synchrony of any particular
historical cultural time. This dimension is largely absent in the mature
iconology of Panofsky, and its eclipse corresponds to the wider process of the
spatialization of culture I referred to earlier. It is in this context that the
meaning of Warburg's project of an 'iconology of the interval' needs to be
explored further.
An indication of the specific character of vVarburg's conception of
iconology can be found early in his Rembrandt lecture, when he asserts that
'One can furthermore draw conclusions about the "spirit of the age" indirectly, when one comes to perceive it as the conscious or unconscious
principle of selection informing the artistic treatment of an ancient inheritance preserved in the memory'.I7 The specific inheritance Warburg is
referring to is Roman and Greek antiquity, which he sees as providing the
basis of vVestern European culture even in his own time. Yet although it
forms a cultural foundation, the meaning of antiquity does not remain
constant; vVarburg's iconology is concerned less with the preservation of
Greek and Roman culture than with their transformatioll. Antiquity functions
as a kind of barometer; Warburg's method explores the dialectic of negation
and preservation, and the identity of a particular culture; for example,
Quattrocento Florence, seventeenth-century Holland, or even early
twentieth-century Europe, lies in the interval between the two.
The phrase 'iconology of the interval' occurs as part of a longer formulation of what Warburg perceived to be his method, in which he analysed 'Art
historical material for a developmental psychology of the oscillation between
a theory of causation based on images and one based on signs'.J8 The introduction of the notion of a developmental psychology introduces a factor that
is largely absent in the later Panofsky, and also tends to be lacking in most
other conceptions of iconology, namely, the role of subjectivity.19 I shall
explore this in the following section, but it is important to note that whereas
Panofsky's system consists of a triangulation of primary - conventional intrinsic (ideological) levels of interpretation, vVarburg's functions on an
entirely different basis. In vVarburg the opposition between 'a theory of
causation based on images and one based on signs' translates into an opposition between mimetic and semiotic forms of representation, with the third
point of the triangle formed by the subjectivity of both the spectator and the
artist.
Warburg's method is underpinned by a conception of visual representation, and indeed the wider culture of which the representations are a part,
as placed within a field of tensions governed by what one might term, pace
Foucault, psychically energized regimes of representation. His own formulation of iconology thus attends to culture as a dialectical process, and this
plays itself out in a number of ways. Warburg's concern with the meaning of
the Florentine Renaissance offers a prime example. As I noted earlier,
Warburg was drawn to the Renaissance because of the significance of its
appropriation of classical antiquity; constituting the threshold of modernity,
it represented for him a particularly absorbing case of the conflict between
mimetic and semiotic regimes of representation, classical tradition and the
306
MATTHEvV RAI\IIPLEY
17 - Warburg, 'Italienische Antike im

Zeitalter Rembrandts', p. 46.
18 - vVarburg. 'j\1IlenIOSYlle Introduction

[Draft]" p. 6.
19 Panofsky's early writings are an

exception to this. In particular, his works
in German develop much more fully
Warburg's interest in the historicizing of
the Kantian subject by Ernst Cassirer. See
PanoLSky, A lI/siit:;:e .,u Grllndfragell der
Klinstwissellschajl. eds H. Oberer and E.
Verheyen (Berlin. 1998); Panofsky, 'The
History of the Theory of Human
Proportions as a Reflection of the History
of Styles', in Atleanillg ill the Visual Arts
(Harmondsworth, 1970) pp. 82-138.
Figure I. Laocoon Group. 50 ill: (Rome,

Vatican). Photo:
Institute.
See Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Akl'

H'a,bwg ,md de, A,,[is<miti.wllIs (Frankfurt
am Main, Igg8).
20 -
present. .Moreover, vVarburg's interest in the Renaissance also implied a

critique of the historiographical tradition from Ranke onwards, which
stressed the notion of historical objectivity. Just as the Renaissance was an
appropriation, rather than a faithful historical re-enactment of classical
antiquity, so the historian describes the past through the perspective of the
present. As has become evident subsequently, this applied to ''''arburg, too,
for his interest in the dialectic of the Renaissance was motivated by contemporary events, in particular the rise of anti-semitism in the late nineteenth
century.'"
The appropriation of the classical legacy, its place within a dialectical
process, manifested itself in a number of ways. First, the culture of classical
Greece and Rome was itself a complex phenomenon. Influenced by
Figure 2. Roman Triangular Base (Pari

Louvre). Photo: '.Varburg Institute.
Nietzsche, vVarburg stresses the dual Dionysian and Apollinian nature of

classical antiquity. In several places vVarburg expressly contradicts the idea of
classical antiquity which, beginning with vVinckelmann, stressed its 'noble
simplicity and tranquil grandeur'.' Instead, the Laocoon statue (figure I), the
occasion for vVinckelmann's formulation, exemplifies far more the Dionysian
current of classical culture. This was manifest not only in the subject of the
myth itselfbut also in the bodily contortions of the figures in the group.oo This
Dionysian current manifests itself elsewhere, too; for example, the heightened
ecstatic gestures of classical maenads (figure 2), or the extreme violence of
much official Roman sculpture, in particular, the frieze ofTrajan on the Arch
of Constantine (figure 3). As vVarburg states, 'Prefigured in classical
I
308
l\,1/\TTHE\Y RAlvIPLE'l<'
Johann Winckelmann, 'Thoug'hts on

the Imitation of the Painting and
Sculpture of the Greeks', in German
Aesthetic and
Criticism: ['Vinckelmalln,
Lessing. Hamann, Herder, Schiller. Goetlze, ed.
Hugh Nisbet
'985) p. +2.
22 - See in particular, 'The Entry of the
Idealising Classical Style in the Painting of
the
Renaissance in Florence'.
21 -
Figure 3. Relief from the

Constantine, Rome. Photo:
Institute.
23 - vVarburg,
[Final Version]" p. 7.
Arch of
vVarburg
Introduction
24 - Warburg, 'Durer and Italian

Antiquity', in Warburg, Renewal, pp. 5538.
25 - See Warburg, 'The Entry of the
Idealising Classical Style in the Painting of
the Early Renaissance'.
26 - A number of essays by Warburg
explore the theme of the dialogue between
Flemish and Burgundian culture and
Florence. See in particular, 'Artistic
Exchanges between North and South in
the Fifteenth Century', in Renewal,
pp. 275-80: 'Flemish Art in Florentine
Early Renaissance', ibid., pp. 281-303;
'Flemish and Florentine Art in Lorenzo
de' Medici's Circle around 1480', ibid.,
pp. 305-7; 'Peasants at Work in
Burgundian Tapestries', ibid., pp. 315-23:
'Airship and Submarine in the Medieval
Imagination', ibid., pp. 333-7:
'Italienisches Festwesen', vVarburg
Archive, No. 98.3.1. See too the lecture on
'Valois Tapestries', vVarburg Archive, No.
96 .3.
sculpture, the triumph of existence confronted the souls of subsequent generations in all its shattering contradictoriness, as both the affirmation oflife and
the negation of the self. They could see it on the pagan sarcophagi of Dionysus
in the tumult of his orgiastic following, or in the form of the victory procession
of the emperor on the Roman triumphal arch."3 At times Warburg even
comes to regard classical antiquity as wholly Dionysian, a zero point of
barbarism against which all cultural progress is to be measured.
One focus of War burg's interest was therefore the twofold appropriation of
the classical inheritance, and if we return to his early Botticelli study, it
becomes apparent that alongside the putative grace and elegance of Botti celli's
paintings War burg is also attentive to elements in the paintings, in particular
the animated way in which Botticelli has depicted the drapery of the figures,
which contradicts Winckelmann's version of antiquity. Already in the Renaissance, therefore, a sensitivity to the Dionysian can be seen, and \1\1 arburg
traces its manifestation in, for example, engravings by Durer,4 or The Battle of
Constantine by the School of Raphael (figure 4), which vVarburg contrasts with
Piero della Francesca's version!5
The second way in which the polarities of the Renaissance become
manifest is through the conflict between 'classicism' and 'realism'. \1\1 arburg
returns repeatedly to the contradiction between the introduction of the
Dionysian pathos of classical sculpture in the early Renaissance (and
\l\1arburg regards Donatello as central to this process), and the continued
popularity in Florence of the courtly style of the late Middle Ages, apparent
in the prominence, for example, of Burgundian tapestries.o 6 Specifically,
\1\1 arburg is drawn to the conflict between the emergent historical sensibility
that underpinned the appropriation of classical forms in Quattrocento
Florence and the fact that the art of Flanders, Germany and Burgundy
exhibits a remarkable lack of historical distance; classical subject-matter was
still presented in contemporary guise.
In his essay on 'Airship and Submarine in the Medieval Imagination',

'Neuburg analyses an ara;:.;;.o in the Palazzo Doria in Rome, possibly
produced for Philip the Good in Tournai between 1450 and 1460 (figure
5).'7 Its subject-matter consists of two legends drawn from the many epic
and romances about Alexander the Great. According to the first, in order to
explore the peak of an extraordinarily high mountain in India, Alexander
had a cage built, which griffins then carried up to the top. In the second
legend, Alexander explored the sea bed in a specially constructed submersible. The first is of special interest to vVarburg, for he interprets it as a sublimated form of a primitive sun worship: 'The sunlit uplands of classical
culture seem to bear no relation to this underworld of childish phantasms;
and yet there clearly resides in all this the nucleus of an authentic RomanOriental solar religion. To my mind Alexander's ascent and descent clearly
echo the legend and the cult of the sun god, who ascends and descends every
day in his chariot - a chariot drawn, in the Syrian cult of .Malachbel, by a
team of four griffins. '28 It is noticeable in this regard that the legend came
increasingly to be interpreted in the Middle Ages as an allegory of human
vanity and hubris."9 vVarburg is therefore interested in mapping out the
transformation in meaning of a specific motif. vVith regard to the araz;:.o in
question, it is also striking that the classical legend has been portrayed in the
contemporary dress of the Burgundian court, indicating an ability to assimilate the classical past to the present.
I have indicated elsewhere the extent to which this Northern 'realism'
exemplifies, for vVarburg, a mimetic form of representation,SO and it stands
3I
"IATTHEW RAMPLEY
Figure 4. School of Raphael, Balli, qf

COllstantine
(Rome,
Vatican).
Photo:
Warburg Institute.
27 - The association with Philip the Good
traditionally
lI'om the fact that in
1459 Pasquier Grenier was commissioned
by Philip to produce a 'chambre de
tap),sserie de l'istoire d'Alixandre'. It has
been suggested that this association is not
secure. Sec Jan Duverger, 'Aantekeningen

betrcffende Laatmiddelecuwse Tapijten
met de Geschiedeni, van Alexander de
Grote', Arle..- Te.,'!iles, 5 (1959-60) pp. 3143. Scc also Victor Schmidt, A Legend and
its Image. The Aerial Flight oj Jlexander the
Great il1 Medieval Art (Groningcn, 1995)
p.
If
23 - Warburg, Renewal, p. 336.
29 - In the first version of the legend, the
fourth-century Life and 1'1 'arks of Alexa/zder
"J Alac.doll by Pseudo-Callisthenes,
Alexander's flight culminates in an
encounter with a 'flying human form' that
instructs Alexander to return to Earth. In
subsequent versions this becomes an
encounter with the voice of God that gives
Alexander the same instructions. God also
features in the
( Ref 30 ovcrieaj)
Figure 5. The Ascent of Alexander the

Great. Flemish Tapestry, 15th century
(Rome, Palazzo Doria). Photo: \Varburg
Institute.
contrast with the sense of historical distance achieved in the Florentine

Renaissance. However, a simple opposition between 'Northern' and
'Southern' European cultures, quite apart from the gross simplicities
involved, would be misleading since, as vVarburg noted, there are contradictions even within the
On the one hand the fantastic events of myth
are depicted including, on the right, Alexander slaying a dragon. At the
same time, Alexander's military conquests are represented in the form of a
siege, in which he takes advantage of the latest military technology of the
fifteenth century: siege artillery. In the version of the Alexander legend
Warburg thought was the direct source of the ara;:.;:.o narrative, namely, the
Alexander romance of Jean vVauquelin, the griffins drawing the airship
began to burn as it rose through the ether into the realm of fire, in response
to which Alexander doused them with a wet sponge and called upon God
for protection. In contrast, as Warburg points out, in the siege fire has
III
30 - See my article 'From Symbol to

Allegory. Aby Warburg's Theory of Art',
Art Bulletill, LXXIX!I (1997) pp. 41-55.
3 11
become an instrument of technical mastery through the use of the cannon.

His conclusion is worth quoting at length:
The tapestry in the Palazzo Doria, not previously noticed in the literature, can
thus be seen as a revealing document of the evolution of historical consciousness in the age of the revival of classical antiquity in Western Europe. The
exaggerated costume detail and the fantastic air of romance ... should not
close our eyes to the fact that here in the North the desire to recall the
grandeur of antiquity was as vigorously felt and expressed as in Italy; and that
this 'Burgundian Antique,' like its counterpart, had a role of its own to play in
the creation of modern man, with his determination to conquer and rule the
world. While continuing to visualize the elemental sphere of fire as inaccessible
even to the preternatural strength of fabulous oriental beasts, man himself,
through firearms, had already tamed the fiery element and pressed it into his
own service. It seems to me by no means far-fetched to tell the modern
aviator, as he considers the 'up-to-the-minute' problem of motor cooling
systems, that his intellectual pedigree stretches back in line directly .. , to tt
grand Alixandre. 3 '
While Warburg draws out historical affinities, it is not in the serVIce of a

reductive search for origins, but rather in order to analyse the interplay of
historical continuities and discontinuities. It is this dialectic of the two that
forms the centre of his 'iconology of the interval', according to which a particular cultural synchrony is intersected by a historical dynamic linking a
series of motivic transformations.
I pointed out earlier the influence of Nietzsche on Warburg, in particular
the influence of Nietzsche's notion of the dual Dionysian-Apollinian basis of
classical culture on \t\Tarburg's own rejection of Winckelmann. This link is
already well established, and has been subjected to detailed scrutinyY
However, there is a further affinity between the two which is often ignored.
Specifically, \t\Tarburg's concern with an iconology of transformations bears
comparison with Nietzsche's genealogical analyses. For both, the continuity
of formal motifs is set against semantic discontinuities. In the case of
Nietzsche, the classic example would be his analysis, in The Genealogy oj
iv/orals, of the meaning of punishment, in which he contrasts the persistence
of punishment as a cultural practice with its successive transformations in
meaning. 33 Likewise vVarburg's often painstaking attention to historical
antecedents and contemporary parallels is bound less to an impulse toward
encyclopaedic documentation than to a goal of mapping out the historical
dynamic informing a specific motif or symbol. His essay on Manet, for
example, which links Manet's Dijezmer S1l1" l'Herbe to Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving of the Judgement of Paris, attends to the ways in which Manet
has transformed the meaning of the motif, and the significance of that transformation as a microcosm of the more general impact of modernity.34 The
primitive phobias expressed in the original version of the motif, together
with the violent associations of the myth of Paris and Helen, contrast with
its function in Manet's painting as an image of the urban leisure of
modernity, albeit replete with classical connotations. Indeed one can extend
vVarburg's analysis by drawing on subsequent analyses of the rise of absentmindedness in modernity. As Jonathan Crary has pointed out, in the latter
half of the nineteenth century there was a growing concern with perceptual
disorders such as aphasia and agnosia, and with the general problem of
3I
lVIATTHE\V RAJ\,IPLEY
31 - Warburg, Renewal, p. 337.
32 See Helmut Pfotenhauer, 'Das

Nachleben der Antike: Aby Warburgs
Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsche',
Nietzsche Studien, XIV (I g85) pp. 2g8-3 13.
33 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of

lvIorals, trans. '''1alter Kaufmann (New
York, Ig68) pp. 57-g6.
34 - vVarburg, 'Manets "Dejeuner sur

I'Herbe". Die vorpragende Funktion
Elementargottheiten fur die Entwicklung
moclernen Naturgefuhls', in Kosmopolis der
Wissenschaft. Ernst Robert Curt;lls mId das
Institllte, ed. Dieter Wuttke

(Baden Baden, Ig8g) pp. 260-72.
35 - Jonathan Crary, 'Unbinding Vision',

October, 68 (1994) pp. 21-44
36 - See Panofsky, Renaissance and

Renascences in Western Art (London, 1970).
37" 'lvlnernujyne Introduction [Final
Version]" p. 2.
38 - Warburg, 'Grisaille Mantegna',

Warburg Archive, No. 102.5, {sec}8.
attentiveness. 35 Specifically, the period in question appears to have been

marked by a decline in attentiveness, and for Crary no artist captured this
phenomenon more comprehensively than Manet. In paintings such as In the
ConseTvatoT.J! and On the Balcony a recurrent feature is an absent-minded lack
of engagement between the central figures. This indifference characteristic
of the late nineteenth century can be contrasted all the more with what
Warburg took to be the fundamental feature of primitive cognition, namely
fear. And it acts as one more marker of the process of cognitive development
expressed, for Warburg, in a variety of motivic transformations in visual
representation.
Straddling the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Warburg embraces
both the genetic history characteristic of nineteenth-century scholarship and
also the synchronic spatial analysis characteristic of the twentieth century. I
have stressed the role of diachronic transformation in vVarburg's thinking,
but this must not be at the expense of his use of spatial metaphors, which
occupy a central place in his writing. I have already outlined the terms by
which Warburg compares Northern and Southern appropriations of
antiquity in the Renaissance, as marked by either the presence or lack of a
sense of historical distance from the classical world. It is the emergence of
this sense of a historical space that characterizes the Renaissance for
Warburg, a characterization which Panofsky later formulated more systematically.3 6 The metaphor of space thus plays a significant role in Warburg's
analysis of the cultures of the Renaissance in Northern and Southern
Europe, but it plays a much broader role in his cultural psychology, which I
shall explore shortly. In this regard his most succinct formulation occurs in
the opening of his Introduction to Mnemo5.-vne, his projected pictorial atlas,
where he states that 'One may designate the conscious creation of distance
between oneself and the external world as the basic act of human
civilization .. .'.37 Civilization is thus founded on the creation of a psychic
space, and it is the absence or presence of this space which also underlies the
regime of representation that oscillates between mimetic and semiotic. The
connection between the two for Warburg is evident in one of his many
unpublished notes from 1929, in which he writes of 'The loss of metaphorical
distance - Replacement by the magical and monstrous confusion of image
and spectator'.3 8 We are thus already confronted with the psychological
basis of War burg's iconology, and it is thus appropriate to discuss this issue
directly.
The psychology of the subject

In the Introduction to lvlnemoS)me \l\Tarburg writes;
39 - 'Mnemosyne Introduction [Final

Version]" p. 9.
The characterization of the restoration of antiquity as the result of the recent

appearance of a consciousness of historical facts and as carefree artistic
empathy, remains an inadequate descriptive evolutionary theory, unless one
simultaneously dares to descend into the deep human spiritual compulsion and
become enmeshed in the timeless strata of the material. Only then does one
reach the mint that coins the expressive values of pagan emotion which stem
from primal orgiastic experience: thiasotic tragedy.39
This passage makes explicit

grounding of an understanding of Renaissance culture in what Warburg perceives to be mechanisms of the human
psyche. The clearest examples of the application of this notion are to be

found in his essay on 'Francesco Sassetti's Last Injunctions to His Sons',40
his psychological sketch of Botticelli, 41 or his various published and unpu blished writings on astrology.4 0 The roots of this psychological interest are
various, including the emerging field of psychological aesthetics in the latter
part of the nineteenth century, the 'intellectualist' orientation of much
nineteenth-century anthropology, together with a more general sense in
vVarburg's time, across a wide range of cultural discourses, of the unstable
nature of human subjectivity. The first of these revolves around the critical
responses of philosophers such as Robert Vischer, Theodor Lipps, or August
Schmarsow to the formalist theories of Johann Herbart and Robert Zimmermann. The second can be seen in the emerging field of anthropology, and
the third includes the psychological researches of figures as diverse as Freud,
Wundt and Charcot and also Georg Simmel's analyses of the neurotic
condition of modern subjectivity, or the interest in dreams and the unconscious of Karl Scherner and even, as Sigrid Schade has pointed out, the
literary avant-garde infin de siecle Paris.+3 I shall discuss each in turn.
The most prominent exponent of formalist aesthetics in the midnineteenth century, Robert Zimmermann, developed a theory of aesthetic
experience that both simplifies and fortifies Kant's original theory of
judgement, drawing in particular on the latter's notion of aesthetic disinterestedness. In the second volume of his General Aesthetics he argues that
aesthetic experience is based on 'the completed presentation of the content
of representation' ('das vollendete Vorstellen des Vorstellungsinhaltes').H
On the assumption that desire is motivated by incompleteness and lack,
Zimmermann therefore argues that in aesthetic experience 'all subjective
affects, hope, longing, love and hate die away' .45 He openly acknowledges
that this notion of completeness gives his theory of aesthetic experience a
classical basis; its general validity stems from the fact, he argues, that 'The
area of the classical is the "universally human," and that of the romantic is
the individual, national and historical'.-I G
Zimmermann's model of aesthetic experience becomes even more abstract
than that of Kant, and it was in response to this empty generality that a
number of counter theories were put forward, of which perhaps the best
known is Robert Vischer's theory of empathy.n At the core of Vischer's
theory, as formulated in his essay of 1873 on 'The Optical Sense of Form', is
the fundamental role of affective, or empathic, engagement with the object
of judgement. 48 In opposition to Zimmermann's disengaged aesthete is the
empathic spectator who mentally projects his or her own carnal experience
onto the aesthetic object. Although it is Vischer whose formulation has
become best known, indeed was acknowledged as such by 'Varburg, the
motif of empathy, or of affective engagement, became widespread in the
aesthetic theory of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In his
Outline of Aesthetics Hermann Lotze, for example, writes that 'we cannot
mentally represent the most abstract forms ... without ... transposing
ourselves into their content and sympathetically enjoying the peculiarly
coloured pleasure or pain which corresponds to it' .-19 Similarly Theodor
Lipps opens his FOllndations if Aesthetics of 1903 with the assertion that
'Aesthetics is the science of beauty ... An object is called beautiful because it
gIves rise to, or is able to give rise to, a specific feeling within me .... This
314
l\IATTHE\\'
40 - ''''arburg, Reuewal, pp. 223-62.

4 [ - 'Sandro Botticelli,' in Renewal,
PP157 6.J..
42 - Alongside the well-known study of
astrology in Lutheran Germany are other
texts such as the lecture Ober astrologische
Druckwerke aus alter und ncuer Zeit'.
Warburg Archive, No. 81.2.
43 - Schade, 'Charcot and the Spectacle of

the Hysterical Body. The "pathos
formula" as an aesthetic sta,ging of
psychiatric discourse - a blind spot in the
reception onVarburg', Art
18/4
(1994) PP499-5I7
44 - Robert Zimmermann, Allgemeine

AeJtiutik als Formwissenschaft (Vienna,
1865), Vol. II, p. 18.
45 - Ibid., p. 19
46 - Ibid., p. 97.
47 - An account of the general

background to Vischer can be found in
Hermann Glockner, 'Robert Vischer unci
die Krisis der Geisteswissenschaften', in his
Friedrich Theodo, Viselzer und das 19.
Jah'hlmdert (Berlin, 193 I) pp. 168-269.
48. Robert Vischer, 'On the Optical
Sense of Form', in Empathy, Form and Space:
P1"Obiems in German Aesthetics 1873-1893, eds
Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios
Ikonomou (Santa Monica, 1994) pp.89123
49 - Lotzc, Qutiine qj'Aesthetics. trans. and

ed. G. Ladd (Boston, 1885) p. 20.
50 - Theodor Lipps, (;rundlegulIg de/"

A,sthetik (Hamburg and Leipzig, 1903),
p. I.
51 - Ibid., p. I I.
52 - Schmarsow, 'Kunstwissenschaft und
Vlkerpsychologie', ::'eitschrijifi;1" Asthetik
lIlId .ll!gemeine h"n1lStwissensehajt, 2 (1907)
pp. 305-39 and 469-500.
53 - Ibid., p. 3 10 .
54 - See, ff)r example,

Introduction [Final Version]', p. 11.
55 Sir Edward Tylor, R,.H'"rr!w.r in/o lhe

Early Histolj oj Mankil1d, [I 865J, 3rd edn
(London, 1878) p. 117.
56 - Tylor, Primitiz'r Cultllre (London,
1871), VA!. I, p. 116.
57 .. Tylor, Rrswrclze.r, p. 123.
58 - Boas, The 1\/ind q( Primiti"" AI all (New

York, 1924). Boas's book was based Dn
public lectures given in 1910/1 I, and other
published material dating Ifom the 1890s.
A German edition was published as i'lllt"r
.md Raas (Berlin, 1922).
59 -- For an account Df\Varburg's
expedition see Benedetta Cestelli Guidi
and Nicholas Mann, eds, Pholographs a/ Iii"
Frontier,
Warburg ill America 1895-1896
(LondDn, 1998). Sec also Ulrich Raulff,
'Nachwort', in Ab), Warburg,
Schlallgenrit"al. Ei" Reisr'ber;cht (Berlin,
199 6 , pr 51-95'
effect is ... a psychological fact ... aesthetics is therefore a psychological

discipline.'5 0 This feeling is later identified as a feeling of desireY This
psychological turn made itself felt in the field of art history, too. The art
historian August Schmarsow, a contemporary of'tVarburg's, openly identified aesthetic theory with psychology in his essay on 'Art History and Collective Psychology' Y Here Schmarsow posited the notion of a 'psychology of
art' as a vital link between collective psychology and more traditional
notions of art history. The importance of this link stemmed, for Schmarsow,
from the general understanding of art as 'a creative confrontation ['Auseinandersetzung'J between the individual and the world they are placed in ...
thus the result of all true art is a growth in the desire for existence and the
value of life' .53 Common to all these positions is the rejection of the formalist
notion of the autonomous aesthetic subject. Instead, aesthetic experience
and artistic production are viewed as psychic processes of engagement with
both the aesthetic object and, in the case of art, with the world represented
by the art object. Schmarsow's term 'Auseinandersetzung', which denotes a
form of debate or argument is of significance here, for it appears, too, III
VVarburg's notion of art. 54
Contemporary with the rIse of psychological aesthetics was the rIse of
anthropology with its predominantly 'intellectualist' reading of so-called
primitive cultures. A central figure in this regard was Edward Tylor. Tylor's
Primitive CultuJ"f of 1871, widely read in Britain and Germany in the late
nineteenth century, was a seminal text for a generation of anthropologists.
For Tylor, 'lVIan, in a low stage of culture, very commonly believes that
between the object and the image of it there is a real connexion, which does
not arise from a mere subjective process in the mind of the observer, and
that it is accordingly possihle to communicate an impression to the original
through the copy.'55 From this stems the practice of magic with its logic of
occult sympathies, a belief according to which 'association of thought must
involve similar connexion in reality' .5 6 This logic survived into the 'old
medical theory known as the "Doctrine of Signatures", which supposed that
plants and minerals indicated by their external characters the diseases for
which nature has intended them as remedies'.\) In contrast, the achievement
of cultural advancement was evident through the ability to distinguish
between representations and things and, ultimately, between the self and the
objective world. A similar conception was put forward hy the GermanAmerican anthropologist Franz Boas in The ivIind oj Primitive lvIan.\s Boas
was of particular significance in this context. Not only largely responsible for
importing European anthropology into America, he may also have influenced 'tVarburg's decision to study the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico in
1896.59
The rise of empathy theory and psychological aesthetics forms a specific
case of a more general growth in interest in psychology in the latter half of
the nineteenth century. Initially such psychology was hardly distinguishable
from philosophy. Indicative of this was the highly influential work by
Clemens Brentano, Ps,),chologJljrom all Empirical Standpoint, puhlished in 1874,
which, for all its highlighting of empirical psychology, was largely a study in
the philosophy of mind. Nonetheless, Brentano's work signalled a gradual
shift in the theoretical interest in consciousness to non-conscious states, such
as dreaming or sleeping, or states where the fragility of subjective rationality
is manifest, such as hysterical and neurotic conditions. Jonathan Crary has

outlined how, during the course of the nineteenth century, the substitution
of a material, psychological notion of the spectator for the sovereign
observer of the camera obscura served to deprive the subject of its rational
autonomy.50 As early as 1833 Johannes Muller's Handbook of Human Physiology had, according to Crary, theorized an observer whose processes of
perception were contingent on a variety of empirical, physiological states,
thus rendering the basis of cognition 'unstable and mobile'."! lVIore
generally, too, the growth of psychology underlined the instability of
rational subjective identity; in his Lectures on Human and Animal Ps.vchology the
pioneer of experimental psychology Wilhelm "Vundt emphasizes the interconnection of cognition and affectivity, or the permeability of the division
between voluntary and involuntary, instinctual actions. 62
One theme of considerable importance was the recognition that such
subjective instability manifests itself to a heightened degree under the conditions of modern life, most obviously through the widespread appearance of
neurosis. Freud openly linked neurosis with the conditions of repression in
modernity, and in doing so draws on a range of authors that had already
made this connection, including Binswanger, Erb, Ehrenfels and KrafftEbbing."3 The sociologist Georg Simmel drew similar conclusions, most
famously, perhaps, in his essay on 'The Metropolis and Mental Life', in
which he characterizes the metropolitan subject as neurotic, a state brought
about by the 'atrophy of the individual and the hypertrophy of objective
culture' .6+ At the root of Simmers view of the metropolitan individual is a
psychological theory according to which the subject is torn between conflicting impulses towards mimetic assimilation and differentiation. 55 In Simmel's
theory one sees a parallel with vVarburg's account; the creation of a mental
space which, for vVarburg, counts as the fundamental act of the civilizing
process, constitutes an overcoming of the mimetic impulse in which such a
distance is eclipsed. In one of the notes from his 'Basic Fragments for a
(Monistic) Psychology of Art' vVarburg identifies this as a central concern:
The acquisition of the feeling of distance between subject and object lis] the
task of so-called cultivation and the criterion of progress of the human race. The
proper object of Cultural History would be the description of the prevalent
state ofreflectivity.66
vVarburg's historicizing of this subjective tension clearly owes much to his

interest in anthropology. Consequently his analysis of Florence in the
Quattrocento should be seen as a psychological anthropology of the Renaissance. The creation of historical distance from antiquity and the growth of
antiquarian interest in the past thus constitute important markers of the
mental and cultural progress.
I wrote earlier of Warburg's interest in regimes of representation. Specifically, he distinguishes between mimetic (or symbolic) and semiotic representation. In the
Introduction he sees it as central to Art History
that it should analyse the 'circulation between a cosmology of images and
one of signs', 6) where signs, most especially in the form of allegorical images,
exemplify the same achievement of mental distance or detachment.
Warburg's 'iconology of the interval' gains its force from the psychological
dynamic that underpins the production of varying representational types.
3I 6
MATTHE"W RAMPLEY
60 - Jonathan Crary, TechniqZl"" of the

Observer. On Vision and Modernity ;n the
Nineteenth Centmy (Cambridge, MA, 1992).
61 - Ibid., p. 91.
62 - vVilhelm vVundt, Lectllres all Hllman and

Allimal
trans. J. E. Creighton
and E. B. Titchener (London, 1896).
63 - Sigmund Freud, , "Civilised" Sexual

Morality and Modern Nervous Illness', in
The Stalldard Edit;on of the Complete
Psychological Writings q[ Sigmund Freud
(London, 1959), IX, pp. 181-204.
64 - Simmel, 'Die Grossstadte und das
Gcistesleben', in Simmel, Aufsiit;;.e and
Abhandlungen 19a1-lga8 (Frankfurt am
Main, 1995), I, pp. 116-31.
65 - See, for example, Simmel's essay 'Zur
Psychologie der Mode', in Simmel,
A'ifsiit;;:.e lind Abhalldillngen 1894-1900
(Frankfurt am Main, 1992) pp. 105-14.
66 - Warburg, 'Grundlegende
Bruchstiicke zu einer monistischen
Kunstpsychologie', Warburg Archive, No.
+3.2, 3 28 .
67 -
Version]" p.
Introduction [Final
2.
58 - E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Theories of
Primili", Rellgioll (Oxford, 1965); C. E. R.
Lloyd,
l\Ientalitirs (Cambridge,
199 0 ).
59 - Warburg, Il11agesjrolJ1 Ihe Regioll q(the

Pueblo I"dial/s, p. 17.
70 - "IVhen Nuer say of rain or lightning

that it is God they Clre makin'S an elliptical
statement. "Vhat is understood is not thal
the thing in itself is spirit but that it is
what we would call a medium or
manifestation or sign of divine activity .. .'
Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Rdigioll (Oxford,
195 6 ) p.
71 - Evans-Pritchard, TI-ilchcrajl, "fagic IlI,,1
Oracles aillong the A"lll1dl' (Oxford, 19371.
72 - Rodney Needham, Belief, Lallguage
a"d E"pt'I"iencl' (Cambridge, 1972).
This is what is most distinctive about vVarburg's method and yet what is
also most problematic. This becomes apparent once his rdiance on notions
of collective psychology and memory are subjected to closer scrutiny.
As I stated above, vVarburg's thought draws on a tradition in which the
psychology of the individual is projected onto the larger social collective.
This is most apparent in anthropological theories of primitive culture, the
most important aspect of which is the emphasis on the idea of primitive
'mentality' or psychology. In certain respects this conflation of the individual and the social can be traced back to Hegel. Although this intellectual
debt remains implicit, there is a elear antecedent in Hegel's conflation of
ontogcncsis and phylogencsis, and in his mapping of thc parallels bct\NCCn
the genesis of self-consciousness and the evolution of the social Geist. This
notion of a collective primitive psychology has been tl1f object of considerable criticism within anthropology. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, and more
recently G. E. R. Lloyd, have highlighted the difficulties that arise with the
idea of the primitive mind. 08 In particular, such theories tend to focus em
religious ritual beliefs and practices, and "Varburg is no exception to this
rule. His lecture based on his experience with the Pueblo Indians of South
'tVestern America focuses almost exclusively on the variety of ritual dances
he witnesses. Specifically, his assertion that the Indians 'stand on the middle
ground between magic and logos '" a culture of touch and a culture of
thought' G9 is based on his analysis of the role of religious symbolism where,
for example, complex meteorological phenomena such as lightning are
expressed through the concrete symbol of the snake, and where the snake
dance invoking the weather god involves imitation of the snake. However,
as Evans-Pritchard suggested nearly 50 years ago, while such purportedly
primitive religions rely heavily on concrete symbols, the symbols themselves
may well function as little more than signs or indices; hence the snakesymbol may simply operate as a metaphor. 70 Furthermore, attention to the
specific question of religion ignores the greater part of the social life of socalled 'primitives', which relies on just the same form of instrumental reason
supposedly characteristic only of modernity. In his study of the Azande
Evans-Pritchard highlights the fact that supposedly sacred spaces and
objects are frequently treated by the Azande as normal profane artefacts
and places.7 1 The theory of primitive mentality would have to explain such
contradictions as a manifestation of schizophrenia, and it is not at all clear
how an entire society or culture could be regarded as schizophrenic; often
the use of such vocabulary in this case serves simply to highlight the
presence of some cultural contradiction, rather than to make a substantive
psychoanalytic point. More generally, too, the notion of primitive, indeed
any collective mentalities rests to a large extent on the assumption of beliefs
held by the culture being studied, belief in demons, in magic, in occult
sympathies, in identity of representation and object and so forth. But it has
been argued by Rodney Needham that the use of 'belief' as a term of crosscultural analysis may be severely problematic.)" Not only is it almost impossible to identify any specific mental state corresponding to believing, but
also the very concept of belief is particular to vVestern culture, having few
counterparts in other cultures. I shall return to this theme later.
vVarburg's own attempt to construct an anthropological psychology of the
Renaissance seems just as problematic, therefore, as those psychological and
anthropological theories on which he was relying. Ifwe return to the tapestry

depicting Alexander the Great's legendary journeys to the top of the heavens
and the bottom of the sea, the tapestry would have to be read as the projection of two competing mentalities, one a monstrous primitive imagination
that still believes in griffins and the fiery realm above the ether, and the other
a technocratic reason that concerns itself with constructing siege artillery. To
read this as symbol of a cultural schizophrenia seems to contradict what
vVarburg himself emphasized, namely, the ease with which two different
pictorial regimes sit alongside each other within the one image. There seems
none of the genuine conflict associated with clinical schizophrenia.
The weakness of vVarburg's reading bccomcs apparent, too, in his essay
on Francesco Sassetti. Here vVarburg attends to the paradox that while
Sassetti appears to be the embodiment of Burckhardt's notion of autonomous, rational Renaissance man, 'the "lVIiddle Ages" ... seems not only to
persist in the habitual religious sentiments of his vita (ontemplatilla, but to
determine his l]ita actil]a'.7:J And this is evident in the fact that he continues to
hold a variety of superstitious beliefs, including belief in the goddess
Fortuna. Warburg notes, 'both Sassetti and [Giovanni] Rucellai reveal how
in that upheaval of subjective sensibility they aspired to a new balance of
energies: they faced the world with a heightened assurance founded on two
still-compatible forms of the cult of memory, Christian-ascetic and antiqueheroic' H In other words, they symbolize the peculiar mixture of worldliness
and religious devotioll characteristic of the Florentine Renaissance.
There are two ways of reading vVarburg's essay. Either he is asserting that
Sassetti was schizophrenic, or he is claiming that Sassetti was the symptom
of a 'transitional' mentality. The first seems hardly tenable, since vVarburg
at all times sees Sassetti as the symptom of a wider cultural phenomenon
rather than being interested in an individual diagnostic case. In the case of
second reading, and vVarburg's reference to a 'transitional phase in subjective sensibility' supports it, the fundamental question has to be posed
regarding what a transitional mentality night actually be. If anything, what
vVarburg's paper shows is that the Quattrocento was a time of transition in
which competing men tali tics clashed, with the new eventually superseding
the older. However, \Varburg's assumption of a mental conflict depends on
one crucial assumption, namely, that Sassetti actually believed in the goddess
Fortuna or, if we return to the Alexander tapestry, that the owners believed
in the Alexander myth. vVarburg's reading of the Renaissance thus raises
the same problems of belief impinging on any anthropological account. It
could be objected at this point that in the Renaissance 'belief' did have a
central role, and that therefore \Varburg's interpretation would be immune
to the kinds of criticism put forward by Needham. However, as Wilfred
Smith has pointed out, the notion of belief as an 'opinion' or 'presupposition'
only emerged in European culture ajtt'/" the Renaissance. i5 Although at the
end of the seventeenth century John Locke characterized belief as 'the
admitting or receiving any proposition for true ... without certain
knowledge', Francis Bacon at the beginning of the century had written of
'the belief of truth', meaning 'holding truth dear'.)" In general, therefore,
before the late seventeenth century 'belief' was connected with notions of
holding dear, pledging allegiance, and this was the case not only in English
but also in Latin, for example, where 'credo in unum Deum' was a
3I 8
l\L\.TTH EW RAl\IPLEY
73 - 'Varburg, Rem",ai, p. 239
7-J. - Ibid., p.
2+0.
75 Willi-eel Cantwell Smith, Belie/and

Histo])' (Charlottesville, 1977).
76 Both eited in Byron Good, llltdicill",

Rat;al/alit)' alld E.\pniellC<' (Cambridge,
199+) p. 16.
statement of allegiance to God rather than belief in His existence. Thus even
for the Renaissance, reference to belief (in the modern sense) has to bc
exercized, ifat all, with extreme caution, and this also affects the psychological anthropology dependent on the assumption of belief. I shall return to the
consequences of this problem in the conclusion.
77 - Gombrich in particular gjves a full

>!ccount on'Varburg's debt to Richard
Semon and Tito Vignoli, Gombrich, op.
cit.
78 - See for example, 'Italian Art ancl

International Astrology in the Palazzo
Schifanoia in Ferrara', In '(Ther
astrologische Druckwerke aus alter und
neuer Zeit', \Varburg cites (pp. 34): The
canopy of the heavens is a g'enuine product
of Greek culture, pl"Oduced by the dual gift
of the ancient Greeks for concrete poetic
intuition and abstract mathematical
ima.gination ... through empathy they
brought order to the infinitely distant
shimmering planetary bodies, by gatbering
together individual stars into groups, in
the silhouettes of which it was believed
could be seen creatures and things ... the
,""pacity for abstract mathematical
imagination further permitted the
development of this pictorial schema into a
calcul"ble system of points ... which made
it possible to ascen"in their place and an)'
change oflocatiol1 by means of an
idealised system of lines.'
79 - An illuminating comparison is made
in Roland Kany,
als Progralll.lII
(Stutlgc,-rr, 1987). See too my Rcmembrallc.
of Things Past. 011 A.bl' AI. Wllrburg alld
TValtn Benjamin (Wiesbaden, forthcoming).
80 - ]\,faurice Halbwachs, Le.\" Cadre.\"
Socia".\ de la /vIimoire (Paris, 1928).
Mnernosyne
An essential part of vVarburg's analysis of the 'oscillation between a theory
of causation based on signs' was his theory of collective memory. The origins
of his ideas on memory in the work of Richard Semon and Ti to Vignoli are
well documented. i i The heart of his theory rests on the notion that visual
symbols function as archives of the mental state of the producer. Hence a
whole range of cognitive and emotional states somehow imprint themselves
on the visual symbol, in the form of 'pathos formulae', the term he used to
denote representations of the bodily expression of human affectivity. The
symbol itself he referred to as an 'engram' or 'dynamogram'. As a consequence of his interest in genealogy, vVarburg was concerned above all with
the original impression of a variety of visual symbols which, being traced
back to primitive origins, almost always have their roots in a Dionysian state
of primal fear. In addition, Warburg held that unmediated exposure to a
primitive engram would reawaken the same emotions, primarily fear, that
fuelled their original creation. An added dimension is thus given to his
iconological method. I have already stressed the importance of motivic
transformation to Warburg's approach, and the significance of that process
now becomes clearer, inasmuch as it is concerned with the reception of a
psychic.ally c.harged cultural legacy. As I have shown, for vVarburg the
Renaissance is less a process of simple repetition of antiquity than one of
appropriation, and likewise cultural memory is more than simply a matter of
neutral recollection. In one sense, for each generation of artists the task is
simple: either to sublimate the primitive memories which, like a stubborn
residue, have become attached to inherited symbols and motifs, or to regress
and allow those memories to be reactivated. In this regard one recurrent
focus of interest was the role of astrology; the figures of the zodiac can be
traced back to primitive origins, when they were actual deities that were
held to influence mundane events in a very concrete manner. Subsequently
they were sublimated, first, into mythic allegories, then into mere navigational aids,?3
Warburg's conception of collective memory is highly suggestive, and

has been compared with vValter Benjamin's philosophy of history, to
which the notion of remembrance is central.7 9 At thc same time, however,
it also invites comparison with the work of a student of Durkheim and
contemporary of vVarburg, Maurice Halbwachs, whose own work on
collective memory throws up some of the difficulties attending vVarburg's
notion. In his study of 1925 on Les Cadres Sociaux de la Afimoire Halbwachs
interprets collective memory as a reflection of the society producing it
rather than of embedded psychological trauma. RD Thus it explores the
social factors that determine the character of social memory; chief among
these is the fact that all memories bear an intimate relation to other
memories, many of which are publicly shared social facts. As Halbwachs
argues:
Every memory, no matter how private it may be, even the memory of events to
which we were the only witness, the memory of thoughts and inexpressible
feelings, is linked to a whole collection of notions that many others possess ...
when we summon LIp a memory ... we connect it to others that surround it: in
truth it is because all around us there are other memories connected to it,
inherent in the objects and beings of the milieu we inhabit, or in us ourselves:
reference points in space and time, conceptions of history, geography,
biography, politics ... 'A'
Halbwachs is thus concerned with the means by which social memory is

sustained and passed on, and this has been the central focus of subsequent
scholarship on lhe subjecl. A recurrent feature has been the function of
patterns of repetition in ensuring the preservation of social memory. These
range from repetitive ritual ceremonies to the use of stereotypic formulae in
the oral histories of pre-literate societies. 8"
It was also recognized in antiquity that memory requires training, cultivation and various aides-menwire. vVhen in the twelfth century Abbot Suger of
St Denis stated that 'mens hebes ad verum per materialia surgit' ['the young
mind achieves truth through concrete things'] he was expressing a commonplace inherited from Roman antiquity that recognized the necessity of
external prompts in the guidance of human knowledge and memory.8:l
Numerous studies have analysed the vanous mnemomc techniques
developed in antiquity and which were to prove highly influential in the
Middle Ages and the
As is well known, three canonical texts,
Quintilian's Institl/tio aratoria, the anonymous Ad HeTennium, and Cicero's De
OratoTe established the mnemotechnics of antiquity, central to which was the
employment of an organizing system that distinguished between recollection
of things and words, and highlighted the use of images in facilitating the
process of remembrance. In short it was a highly developed technique which
implied that in the absence of such a system the process of recollection
would be hindered or even not take place.
In contrast with such studies of the institutions of cultural memory and
the techniques of recollection, vVarburg offers no explanation as to how
primitive meanings are 'remembered', or what the vehicle of such transmission might be. vVarburg could be defended in one way, for as Jan Vansina
has emphasized, social memory can be articulated through bodily gestures,
and vVarburg was particularly drawn to the meaning of gesture and its
representation. as At the same time, however, Warburg, influenced by
Charles Darwin, appeared to neglect the extent to which the meaning of
gesture is socially and historically mediated, and thus not a reliable vehicle
for the preservation of primal memories. lV10reover, because of his intellectual debt to Semon and Vignoli, vVarburg assumed that primitive memories
could be rea wakened by unmedia ted exposure to their originary visual
symbols, as if there were some form of trans-historical 'natural' representation. According to this picture, while the Renaissance is characterized as an
appropriation of the legacy of the classical cultural, it also consists of a
process of social remembrance, in which the renewed encounter with the
artefacts of antiquity brings about a recollection of the primitive Dionysian
impulses that went into their making. His lecture on 'The Entry of the
Idealising Classical Style in the Painting of the Early Renaissance' analyses
the impact of classical sarcophagi and Roman triumphal sculpture, together
320
i\-IATTHE'"
RA;'I,IPLEY
8, - Ibid., pp. 51-2.
82 On the subject of collective memory

see Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember
(Cambridge, 1989);james Fentress and
Chris Wickham, SOlial
(Oxford,
199 2 ).
83 Cited in Panofskv, 'Abbol Suger ofSt

Denis', in AJean;/lg ill the Visual Arts, p. 164.
84 - The mDst obvious is perhaps Frances

Yates, The Art oIAlemol)' (London, 1966.1.
Sec, also, jacques Le Goff, History and
Aiemory, trans. Steven Rendall and
Elizabeth Claman (New York, 1992), esp.
pp. 51-99; Aleida Assmann and Dietrich
Harth, eds,
Formell 'lJId Funkt;on
del' Kiliturellen Erillnerwlg (Frankfurt am
Main, 1993).
85 - jan Vansina, 'InitiatiDn Rituals of the

Bushong', .'!Fica, XXV (1955), pp. 13853
86 - See Panofsky, Renai,'sance al1d

Renascences ill IVcstern Art (New York,
1969). This issue was pursued most
systematically by the Warburgian scholar
E. R. Curtius, whose European Literature al1d
lhe Latin j\fiddle AgES, trans. W. Trask
(London, 1953) foregrounds the continuity
of motifs, or topoi fi'om classical literature
throughout the medieval period.
87 - Sigmund Freud, Standard Editio1l, XII,

PP147-5 6 .
88 - Ibid., p. 151.
89 - Ibid., p. 155
90 - Freud, 'Totem and Taboo', in

Standard Edition, XIII, p. 158.
with the later discovery of work such as the Hellenistic Laocoon sculpture.
This raises a difficulty, however, for W'arburg's general theory. As Warburg
knew only too well, though the Quattrocentro witnessed an enormous
expansion in the knowledge of classical culture, including the widespread
dissemination of Greek and Roman texts, a knowledge of classical antiquity
was continuous prior to this period. 86 In Italy its monuments were ever
present, most particularly in Rome, from the Arch of Constantine to the
Colosseum to Trajan's Column, but, inexplicably, it was only during the
course of the Quattrocento that the authentic Dionysian and Apollinian
bases of antiquity were 'remembered', in contrast with the various degraded
versions that had persisted through the Middle Ages. 'Where a contemporary
commentator might look for relevant social, economic or other historical
factors that underlay this difference, vVarburg fails to account for the
mechanisms that brought about this shift in the manner of recollection. And
in any case this notion also contradicts his theory of the engram, according
to which direct exposure always communicates its full psychic impact.
vVarburg does not explain how this full psychic impact was somehow
deflected during the course of the Middle Ages. vVarburg's reading of the
Laocoon, though an important part of his critique of the view of antiquity
stemming from Winckelmann, also serves to undermine his own position.
For Winckelmann's 'misreading' of the group, emphasizing its tranquillity,
should, according to vVarburg's notion of the engram, not even be possible.
And in any case, vVarburg's own reading of the group, or of Botticelli's
paintings, for example, depends on mediation by a vast array of pictorial
and textual material. The concept of the unmediated encounter with the
engram thus does not square either with 'Varburg's method or with his
wider historical picture.
vVarburg's interest in social memory is thus deeply questionable as it
stands, but can be retrieved if reformulated in the light of Freud, in partiClllar, his paper of 1914 on 'Remembering, Repeating and Working
Through' .87 In this paper Freud distinguishes between repetition-compulsion and recollection; repressed traumatic experiences are not remembered
but rather acted out, without the patient realizing that the experience is
being repeated. The greater the trauma, the more likely it is that the
repressed experience will surface through a process of compulsive repetition
than through a genuine act of remembrance. As Freud notes, 'the greater
the resistance, the more extensively will acting out (repetition) replaces
remembering' .88 Thus, though the compulsion to repeat reiterates a
repressed, forgotten, past experience, it functions within a perpetual present,
acting in the place of memory. For Freud genuine recollection arises
through the phenomenon of transference, 'the awakening of the memories,
which appear without difficulty, as it were, after the resistance has been
overcome'.89
Freud's discussion is here concerned with the specific issue of clinical
treatment, but in other works his account of trauma, repression and repetition functions as a frame of analysis for wider cultural phenomena. Freud
frequently returned to the question, 'what are the ways and means
employed by one generation in order to hand on its mental states to the
next one?'.9 0 In '.Moses and Monotheism' the emergence of Judaism and its
eventual supplanting by Christianity are interpreted by analogy with the
321
psychopathology of the individuapr In this his most sustained discussion of

collective memory Freud argues that 'the archaic heritage of human beings
comprises ... memory-traces of the experience of earlier generations', with
the further stipulation that repetition is one of the two mechanisms
whereby such memories enter into the collective unconsciousY Implicit in
this later account is also the distinction between archaic heritage and
historical recollection of tradition based on the vl"Orking-through of
repressed memories.
I believe vVarburg was struggling towards a similar view of social
memory, though using the completely inadequate vocabulary of Semon and
Vignoli. Specifically, he distinguishes between the compulsive repetition of
the primitive psychic engram, and its sublimation into a symbolic cultural
narrative. Barbarism thus stands at the root of all culture, and through the
polarity of Athens and Alexandria, \Varburg dramatized the constant
tension between sublimation and regression. As he notes, 'The legacy of
antiquity offers the artist, through the medium of historical recollection,
experiences of a passionate, active or passive orientation towards the world,
which are just as essential a part of the modern social psyche as childhood
recollections are to the life of the ad ul f.
If we follow Freud, however, it becomes apparent that another aspect of
vVarburg's account requires modifying. Strictly speaking, the regression into
primitive barbarism at the root of all engrams does not constitute a process
of remembering, but rather one leading to oblivion. True collective
memory, in contrast, only emerges through the process of sublimation, and
not through a process of regression. Collective memory is thus always the
construction of a particular social narrative, and this also indicates the role
of collective memory in the construction of a social, historical identity, in
opposition to repetition-compulsion. Ultimately, this also has to apply to the
inherited forms of classical antiquity. Far from presenting a 'degree zero' of
culture, as vVarburg often appears to believe, they are themselves sublimated
memories, mythic narratives of an original experience that can never be
recalled as sllch.
vVarburg's failure to distinguish between these two stems largely from his
reliance on a notion of memory as a form of inscription. As Aleida Assmann
has demonstrated, this stands at the end of a long established tradition that
described memory as an archive, using metaphors of the temple, the library
or, latterly, the
Freud was himself no exception to this; in particular
he attempted to explain the function of memory through comparison with
the mystic writing pad. 9 :i However, his own distinction between repetition
and recollection points towards an alternative model, such as that favoured
by much contemporary neurological research, which views memory as the
function of neural connections and networks across the entire system, rather
than as a set of imprints stored somewhere in the mind. Such models
conceive of the activity of the memory as a process of construction rather
than one of storage. 9li Such a metaphor also renders the analogy between
individual and social, collective memory far less problematic. Cultural
memory consists of a dynamic system, in which inherited narratives,
symbols, icons and motifs are continually assembled and reassembled in
varying configurations, rather than simply being preserved in a storehouse
of inherited meanings and motifs. Of course the nature and function of
322
MATTH E \\. RAM PI.EY
91 - Freud, Stand"rd Edition, XXIII, pp. 7137
92
Ibid., p. 99.
93 Warburg, 'Gnmdbegrific', \Yarburg

Archive No. 102.+, Entry [or Q/5/1929.
9+ - Aleida Assmann, 'Zur Metaphorik

der Erinnerung', in
and Harth,
eels,
Fonnen lind FlInk!ioncn der
k,dlllrellen Erinnerung, PI' 13-35
95 - Freud, 'A Note on the MystiGd Pad',
in Standard Editioll, XIX, pp. 225-32.
96 - Siegfried Schmidt, 'Gedchtnis-
Erzhlen- IelcntiUit', in Assmann and

Harth, op. cit., p. 378.
cultural memory, and its impact on the understanding of the Renaissance,

still remains to be explored further. However, it is only on the basis of such
an understanding of cultural memory that a credible account can be made
of how the meaning of classical antiquity could vary so much between, for
example, Quattrocento Florence and late medieval Burgundy.
97 Michd Foucault, TIl, Order of Things

(London, 1989).
98 - Exceptions would bc Hillel Schwartz,

The C"/(,,re of the COp)' : Cambridgc, MA,
1997); Hans Belting, Likelless alld Pr'SPllcf'
(Chicago, 1987).
99 - Peter Dews, 'Foucault and the Frcnch

Tradition of Historical Epi,tcmology', in
The Limits ojDiml.dla7llml'lli (London,
1995) pp. 39-5 8 .
Conclusion
Although it has become the focus of a resurgence of scholarly interest, much
of the thought of Aby VVarburg has now become deeply problematic. In
particular, his reliance on the notion of a collective mentality and his theory
of social memory are open to a wide range of criticisms. In modified form,
however, his work presents a rich legacy, and I shall conclude by outlining
its continuing importance.
I began my analysis of \'Varburg's 'iconology of the interval' by means of
a comparison with Panofsky, drawing particular attention to the importance
for vVarburg of iconological differences. A crucial distinction between
and W'arburg is the latter's interest in the effect of historical shifts

on specific historical synchronies. One implication of'Varburg's approach,
especially with regard to the Renaissance, is the recognition of the importance of historical discontinuities and ruptures, which make themselves felt
in the form of contradictions and paradoxes 'within a culture. A synchronic
analysis that simply registered the presence of ruptures "vi thin a cultural
space or system would be reduced to mere positivism, without any explanatory framework, other, perhaps, than regarding rupture as intrinsic to any
symbolic system.
A key element of War burg's iconological analysis is the tracing of the shift
from mimetic to semiotic regimes of representation. The psychological
underpinning to this analysis is suspect, as I have suggested, but shorn of its
problematic psychological basis, such an analysis is still of crucial importance. I drew attention to parallels with Foucault earlier, and one can
pursue this relation a little further. In The Order of Things Foucault analyses
the role of resemblance in the Renaissance, describing it as the dominant
logic of representation. 9) Foucault's model is problematic, for, as the work of
'I\Tarburg indicates, it is difficult to refer to the regime of representation in
the Renaissance, yet his study does at least indicate how 'I\Tarburg's project
might be developed when shorn of its reliance on collective mentalities.
Although Foucault's book begins with an analysis of Velasquez's Las
Afenill(/s, the remainder focuses on literary forms of representation.
vVarburg's work indicates the way in which a similar analysis of visual representation might be undertaken, an area which is in many respects still
under-explored. 98 At the same timc, however, Foucault's approach is
limited to the kind of positivism referred to earlier. In particular, European
culture since the Renaissance appears, for Foucault, to have been constituted by three monolithic and incommensurable epistemic regimes, which
succeeded each other. As Peter Dews has argued, there is in Foucault no
mechanism for explaining the process of shift from one regime to another,
and this stems from the fact that Foucault has attempted to account for
European intellectual history ahistorically.g9 vVarburg, on the other hand,
was profoundly aware of the importance of the diachronic axis that intersected any specific historical time, expressed through the form of cultural
memory. \Varburg's identification of psychic oscillations as the primary

motor of epistemic change is no longer tenable, but his account does at least
highlight recognition of the fact that the epistemic and representational
regimcs of the past were not as self-contained as Foucault's theory suggests.
\Yarburg based his notion of representational types on an idea of specific
historical mentalities. The idea of a 'mentality', for all its importance in the
history of anthropology, for example, has proved to be deeply questionable.
I raised the difficlll ty earlier of talking of 'men tali ty' in the case of Francesco
Sassetti, in relation to the problem of belief, and a more general critique can
be made of the notion. G. E. R. Lloyd has suggested that the idea of
'mentalities' is better replaced by a notion of 'modes of reasoning'. 100 Lloyd
argues that it is possible to outline different modes of reasoning, or discursive
strategies, without being committed to the idea of a deeper supporting
mentality. Instead, one can speak of varying discursive contexts, in which
differing forms of reasoning are or are not permitted, or are used for distinct
purposes. Lloyd's own work on the emergence of Greek science offers
examples of just such an analysis, where the formation of recognizable scientific discourses can be explained without reliance on the speculative supposition of a mass subjective shift."" For example, in his study Polarirl' and
Analo.!;.v Lloyd analyses the emergence of two types of argumentation in early
Greek philosophy which, in the language of vVarburg, could easily be seen
as symptomatic of primitive or enlightened mentalities, being reliant on the
perception of affinities or differences. ln2 Yet as Lloyd demonstrates, these
may be regarded as argumentational strategies, which by no means involve
the attribution of belief, and they are also forms of reasoning still practised
today. \Vhen applied to vVarburg's own focus of interest, the uses of this
procedure seem obvious. The fact that many Renaissance astronomers were
also astrologers and magicians need not be interpreted as the sign of a
cultural pathology, but rather as indicative of the possibility ofa plurality of
modes of reasoning within differing contexts. Again, the analogy with
pictorial practices presents itself, and just as Lloyd analyses the strategic
timction of different modes of reasoning, so it is important to think through
the' possibility of analysing the strategic roles of differing pictorial regimes.
Finally, vVarhurg's account of cultural memory points towards the analysis
of the function of images in the construction ofa cultural memory. Although it
has been recognized that images serve an important role in preserving social
memory, scholarship has not attended to the significance of visual representations. Instead, the focus has been the function of images within narrative
performances, common examples in Europe being the Homeric poems or epic
poems of the Middle Ages such as the Chanson de Roland or Beowulf. vVarburg
instead turned to visual representations and to a period much closer to our
own. In the Renaissance, the appropriation of antiquity emerges less as a case
of the reactivation of primitive, embedded memories, but rather as a
narrative recollection serving the construction of Florentine identity. In this
regard vVarburg reminds us of the dual possibility of tradition, either as an
amnesiac repetition of the past or as a memorial construction, and it is
through attention to the continuitics and discontinuities of this construction
that his iconology of the interval finds its proper place.
324
l\IATTHE'"
RAl\II'LEY
100 -
Lloyd, op. cit.
Illotc
68).
101 - See Lloyd, j\lagic RcaSOlllllld

EcpaielI(e
1979).
I
- PolariJ' and Allalogy. Two 7)peJ of
Argumwtatioll ill Ear[J' (;rnk Thollgh.t
1986).

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Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/ Visual Enquiry

Iconology of the interval: Aby Warburg's legacy

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Iconology of the interval: Aby

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1 - The term 'iconology' predated

Taylor & francis Ltd

rl'rmi & Image 15S1'\ o266---{j286 CO

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3 - See, for example, Michael Ann Holly,

(Ithaca, 1984) p. 181 ff.: Giulio Argan,

representation can never be traced

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9 - Erwin Pan ofsky , Earll' Netherlalldish

'3 - \,yarburg, 'Italienische Antike im

14 - Warburg also mentions a triumphal

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dynamic process rather than a fixed network of connections. While both

17 - Warburg, 'Italienische Antike im

18 - vVarburg. 'j\1IlenIOSYlle Introduction

19 Panofsky's early writings are an

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Figure I. Laocoon Group. 50 ill: (Rome,

See Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Akl'

present. .Moreover, vVarburg's interest in the Renaissance also implied a

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Figure 2. Roman Triangular Base (Pari

Nietzsche, vVarburg stresses the dual Dionysian and Apollinian nature of

Johann Winckelmann, 'Thoug'hts on

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Figure 3. Relief from the

24 - Warburg, 'Durer and Italian

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In his essay on 'Airship and Submarine in the Medieval Imagination',

Figure 4. School of Raphael, Balli, qf

secure. Sec Jan Duverger, 'Aantekeningen

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Figure 5. The Ascent of Alexander the

contrast with the sense of historical distance achieved in the Florentine

30 - See my article 'From Symbol to

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become an instrument of technical mastery through the use of the cannon.

While Warburg draws out historical affinities, it is not in the serVIce of a

31 - Warburg, Renewal, p. 337.

32 See Helmut Pfotenhauer, 'Das

33 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of

34 - vVarburg, 'Manets "Dejeuner sur

Institllte, ed. Dieter Wuttke

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35 - Jonathan Crary, 'Unbinding Vision',

36 - See Panofsky, Renaissance and

37" 'lvlnernujyne Introduction [Final

38 - Warburg, 'Grisaille Mantegna',

attentiveness. 35 Specifically, the period in question appears to have been

The psychology of the subject

39 - 'Mnemosyne Introduction [Final

The characterization of the restoration of antiquity as the result of the recent

This passage makes explicit

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psyche. The clearest examples of the application of this notion are to be

40 - ''''arburg, Reuewal, pp. 223-62.