Abraham Moritz Warburg, known as
Aby Warburg, (June 13, 1866 – October 26, 1929) was an art historian and cultural theorist who founded the
Warburg InstituteThe Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of the influence of classical antiquity on all aspects of European civilisation.-History:...
. The subject of his research was the legacy of the Classical world in the most varied areas of western culture through to the Renaissance. He was responsible for establishing iconology as an independent discipline of art history.
Warburg described himself as:
-
-
- Amburghese di cuore, ebreo di sangue, d'anima Fiorentino
Life
Aby Warburg was born in Hamburg into a well-to-do family of bankers. His ancestors had come to Germany from Italy in the 17th century and settled in the town of
WarburgWarburg is a town in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia on the river Diemel near the three-state point shared by Hessen, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is in Höxter district and Detmold region...
in Westphalia, taking on the town’s name as their family name. In the 18th century the Warburgs moved to Altona. Two brothers Warburg founded the banking firm
M. M. Warburg & CoM.M.Warburg & CO KGaA is a large German private investment bank in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded in 1798 by the brothers Moses Marcus and Gerson Warburg.Today, the firm's core business is in private banking, asset management, and investment banking....
in Hamburg, which today again has an office in Hamburg. Aby Warburg was the first of seven children born to Moritz Warburg, director of the Hamburg bank, and his wife Charlotte, née Oppenheim. While Aby Warburg showed an early interest in literature and history, his brothers
Max WarburgMax M. Warburg was a Jewish-German-American banker and was, from 1910 until 1938, director of M.M.Warburg & CO in Hamburg, Germany. Prior to his directing of the Warburg banking company, he developed apprenticeships in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, and London...
,
Paul WarburgPaul Moritz Warburg was a Jewish-German-American banker and early advocate of the U.S. Federal Reserve system.- Early life :...
and Felix Warburg entered the banking business.
Childhood and youth
Warburg grew up in a conservative Jewish home environment. Early on he demonstrated an unstable, unpredictable and volatile temperament. Warburg as a child reacted against the religious rituals which were punctiliously observed in his family, and rejected the career plans envisaged for him. He wanted to be neither a rabbi, as his grandmother wished, nor a doctor or lawyer. Despite the resistance he met with from his relatives, he forced through his plans to study art history. Aby famously made a deal with his brother Max to forfeit his right, as the eldest son, to take over the family firm, in return for an undertaking on Max’s part to provide his eldest brother with whatever books he should need.
Studies
In 1886 Warburg began his study of art history, history and archaeology in Bonn and attended the lectures on the history of religion by
Hermann UsenerHermann Karl Usener was a German scholar in the fields of philology and comparative religion.-Life:...
, those on cultural history by Karl Lamprecht and on art history by Carl Justi. He continued his studies in Munich and with Hubert Janitschek in Strasbourg, completing under him his dissertation on Botticelli’s paintings
The Birth of Venus and
Primavera.
From 1888 to 1889 he studied the sources of these pictures at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. He was now interested in applying the methods of natural science to the human sciences. The dissertation was completed in 1892 and printed in 1893. Warburg’s study introduced into art history a new method, that of
iconographyIconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek εἰκών "image" and γράφειν "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons...
or iconology. After receiving his doctorate Warburg studied for two semesters at the Medical Faculty of the University of Berlin, where he attended lectures on psychology. During this period he undertook a further trip to Florence.
Travels in the USA
Paul WarburgPaul Moritz Warburg was a Jewish-German-American banker and early advocate of the U.S. Federal Reserve system.- Early life :...
married Nina Loeb, daughter of Salomon Loeb in New York late in 1895 and Aby Warburg used the occasion to travel. His long American journey took him to Colorado in winter, to New Mexico and then to Pasadena and
Mount LoweMount Lowe may refer to:* Mount Lowe , a mountain in Antarctica* Mount Lowe , a mountain in British Columbia, Canada* Mount Lowe , a mountain in California, United States...
. He met the San Francisco boheme and then went back to the Pueblos in spring, to the
HopiThe Hopi are American Indians people who primarily live on the 12,635 km² Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi Reservation is entirely surrounded by the much larger Navajo Reservation. The two nations used to share the Navajo-Hopi Joint Use Area...
and
ZuniThe Zuni or A:shiwi are a Native American tribe, one of the Pueblo peoples, most of whom live in the Pueblo of Zuni on the Zuni River, a tributary of the Little Colorado River, in western New Mexico, United States...
. Before going west he met experienced anthropologists
James MooneyJames Mooney was an American anthropologist who lived for several years among the Cherokee. He was born at Richmond, Indiana. In 1885 he became connected with the Bureau of American Ethnology at Washington, D.C. under John Wesley Powell. He compiled a tribal list containing 3,000 titles...
and
Frank Hamilton CushingFrank Hamilton Cushing was born in Northeastern Pennsylvania, later moving with his family to western New York. As a boy he took an interest in the Native American artifacts in the surrounding countryside and taught himself how to knap flint . He published his first scientific paper when he was...
at the
Smithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its shops and its magazines...
.
Cushing- Places in the United States :* Cushing, Iowa* Cushing, Maine* Cushing, Minnesota* Cushing Township, Minnesota* Cushing, Nebraska* Cushing, Oklahoma* Cushing, Texas* Cushing, Wisconsin* Cushing Island, Maine- People :...
had lived for years with the
ZuniThe Zuni or A:shiwi are a Native American tribe, one of the Pueblo peoples, most of whom live in the Pueblo of Zuni on the Zuni River, a tributary of the Little Colorado River, in western New Mexico, United States...
in New Mexico and fascinated Warburg wanted to see the Pueblos for himself. First stop in the west was
Mesa VerdeMesa Verde may refer to:*Mesa Verde National Park, a national park in Montezuma County, Colorado, U.S.*Mesa Verde Middle School , a middle school in Moorpark, California...
to see the Anasazi cliff dwellings and then he went from
PuebloPueblos are traditional communities of Native Americans in the southwestern United States of America. The communities are recognized worldwide for their adobe buildings, which are sometimes called "pueblos"...
town to Spanish town, to Cochiti and the
Palace HotelPalace Hotel may refer to:Australia*Palace Hotel, PerthChina*Palace Hotel *Palace Hotel ; now Peace Hotel South BuildingDenmark*Palace Hotel Scandic, CopenhagenEgypt*Winter Palace Hotel, LuxorEngland...
in
Santa FeSanta Fe is the capital of the state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 62,203 at the April 1, 2000 census; the estimate for July 1, 2006, is 72,056...
, to Albuquerque and
AcomaAcoma may refer to:* Acoma Pueblo, a Native American pueblo* Acoma Township, McLeod County, Minnesota, United States* USS Acoma, two ships of the United States Navy...
, Laguna and
San IldefonsoSan Ildefonso, or La Granja, or La Granja de San Ildefonso, is a town and municipality in the province of Segovia, Spain, situated 34 miles northwest of Madrid. The population as of the 2008 census was 5,637. Philip V built a splendid palace - La Granja — in the town in 1721-24...
, where he photographed an Antilope dance. In Cochiti Warburg spoke to a priest and his son and received a cosmological drawing with a snake at its center. The
HopiThe Hopi are American Indians people who primarily live on the 12,635 km² Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi Reservation is entirely surrounded by the much larger Navajo Reservation. The two nations used to share the Navajo-Hopi Joint Use Area...
of Arizona were already famous for their
snake danceSnake dance is a term used to refer to a parade before or during a high school or college homecoming event. The parade includes floats built by each high school class, marching bands, students, and alumni. Snake dance may also be more narrowly used to describe the student parade...
and although April was too early in the year to see this tourist attraction, the time he spent with the
HopiThe Hopi are American Indians people who primarily live on the 12,635 km² Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi Reservation is entirely surrounded by the much larger Navajo Reservation. The two nations used to share the Navajo-Hopi Joint Use Area...
was a most important part of his long journey. Warburg was fascinated with their still secluded culture, their architecture, ritual, their masks and their ages old abstract painting on pottery
Nampeyo Iris Nampeyo was a Hopi potter who lived on the Hopi Reservation in present-day Arizona. She received the English name Iris as an infant, but was better known by her Tewa name, Num-pa-yu, meaning "snake that does not bite"...
had recently revived.
MennoniteThe Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...
missionary
Heinrich R. VothHeinrich Richert Voth was an ethnographer and Mennonite missionary and minister. He was born in Alexanderwohl, Southern Russia...
shared his knowledge of
HopiThe Hopi are American Indians people who primarily live on the 12,635 km² Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi Reservation is entirely surrounded by the much larger Navajo Reservation. The two nations used to share the Navajo-Hopi Joint Use Area...
religion. Voth and Warburg saw a Hemis
KachinaA kachina is a spirit being in western Pueblo cosmology and religious practices. The western Pueblo, Native American cultures located in the southwestern United States, include Hopi, Zuni, Tewa Village , Acoma Pueblo, and Laguna Pueblo...
dance complete with obscene clowning. Thanks to Voth he could also observe the preparations for this end-of-winter ceremony. The most famous photo of the trip shows Warburg holding a half naked dancer resting. Another snapshot is of Warburg wearing a
KachinaA kachina is a spirit being in western Pueblo cosmology and religious practices. The western Pueblo, Native American cultures located in the southwestern United States, include Hopi, Zuni, Tewa Village , Acoma Pueblo, and Laguna Pueblo...
dancer' s mask. In New York the social life of the Schiffs and Loebs seemed empty and futile, and Warburg was very impressed with the dead seriousness of
HopiThe Hopi are American Indians people who primarily live on the 12,635 km² Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi Reservation is entirely surrounded by the much larger Navajo Reservation. The two nations used to share the Navajo-Hopi Joint Use Area...
ritual. Writing up his field notes for a now famous lecture at the Kreuzlingen sanatorium Warburg stressed the kinship of religious thinking in
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
and
OraibiOraibi, also referred to as Old Oraibi, is a Hopi village in Navajo County, Arizona, United States, in the northeastern part of the state. Known as Orayvi by the native inhabitants, it is located on Third Mesa on the Hopi Reservation near Kykotsmovi Village...
. Ancient Greece had its animal cults and dangerous rites. It and Italy in the Renaissance were not the safe places the complacent Übermensch on holiday in Florence sought. Harmony and perfection only hide terrible conflict and rationality is always in danger of deep seated irrationality.
Florence
In 1897 Warburg married, against his father’s will, the painter and sculptor Mary Hertz, daughter of a Hamburg senator and member of the Synod of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Hamburg. The couple had three children: Marietta (1899–1973), Max Adolph (1902–1974) and Frede C. Warburg (1904–2004). In 1898 Warburg and his wife took up residence in Florence. While Warburg was repeatedly plagued by depression, the couple enjoyed a lively social life. Among their Florentine circle could be counted the sculptor
Adolf von HildebrandAdolf von Hildebrand was a sculptor,Hildebrand was born at Marburg, the son of Marburg economics professor Bruno Hildebrand. He was the author of Das Problem der Form in der Bildenden Kunst . From 1873 he lived in Florence in San Francesco, a secularized sixteenth-century monastery...
, the writer
Isolde KurzIsolde Kurz , was a German poet and short story writer.She was born at Stuttgart, the daughter of Hermann Kurz. She is highly regarded among contemporary lyric poets in Germany with her Gedichte and Neue Gedichte . Her short stories, Florentiner Novellen Isolde Kurz (December 21, 1853 - April 5,...
, the English architect and antiquary
Herbert HorneHerbert Percy Horne was an English poet, architect, typographer and designer, art historian and antiquarian. He was an associate of the Rhymer's Club in London...
, the Dutch Germanist André Jolles and the Belgian art historian Jacques Mesnil. The most famous Renaissance specialist of the time, the American
Bernard BerensonBernard Berenson was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. He was a major figure in establishing the market for paintings by the "Old Masters".-Personal life:...
, was likewise in Florence at this period. Warburg, for his part, renounced all sentimental aestheticism, and in his writings criticised a vulgarised idealisation of an individualism that had been imputed to the Renaissance in the work of
Jacob BurckhardtCarl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt was a historian of art and culture, and an influential figure in the historiography of each field. He is known as one of the major progenitors of cultural history, albeit in a form very different from how cultural history is conceived and studied in academia today...
.
During his years in Florence Warburg investigated the living conditions and business transactions of Renaissance artists and their patrons as well as, more specifically, the economic situation in the Florence of the early Renaissance and the problems of the transition from the Middle Ages to the early Renaissance. A further product of his Florentine period was his series of lectures on
Leonardo da VinciLeonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer....
, held in 1899 at the
KunsthalleKunsthalle is, generally, in German speaking regions a term for a facility mounting temporary art exhibitions. Some are run or supported by a local Kunstverein, an art association of local collectors and artists...
in Hamburg. In his lectures he discussed Leonardo’s study of medieval bestiaries as well as his engagement with the classical theory of proportion of
VitruviusMarcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer , active in the 1st century BC. By his own description Vitruvius served as a Ballista , the third class of arms in the military offices...
. He also occupied himself with Botticelli’s engagement with the Ancients evident in the representation of the clothing of figures. Feminine clothing takes on a symbolic meaning in Warburg’s famous essay, inspired by discussions with Jolles, on the nymphs and the figure of the Virgin in Domenico Ghirlandaio’s fresco in Santa Maria Novella in Florence. The contrast evident in the painting between the constricting dress of the matrons and the lightly dressed, quick-footed Virgin serves as an illustration of the virulent discussion around 1900 concerning the liberation of female clothing from the standards of propriety imposed by a reactionary bourgeoisie.
Return to Hamburg
In 1902 the family returned to Hamburg, and Warburg presented the findings of his Florentine research in a series of lectures, but at first did not take on a professorship or any other academic position. He rejected a call to a professorship at the University of Halle in 1912. He became a member of the board of the Völkerkundemuseum, with his brother Max sponsored the foundation of the "Hamburger wissenschatflichen Stiftung" (1907) and the foundation of a university in Hamburg, which succeeded in 1919, and at which he took up a professorship. At this period signs of a mental illness were present which affected his activities as a researcher and teacher.
He suffered from
depressionMajor depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
and symptoms of
schizophreniaSchizophrenia , from the Greek roots skhizein and phrēn, phren- is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality...
, and was hospitalized in
Ludwig BinswangerLudwig Binswanger was a Swiss psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of existential psychology. His grandfather was founder of the "Bellevue Sanatorium" in Kreuzlingen, and his uncle Otto Binswanger was a professor of psychiatry at the University of Jena.In 1907 Binswanger received his medical...
's neurological clinic in
KreuzlingenKreuzlingen is a municipality in the district of Kreuzlingen in the canton of Thurgau in Switzerland. It is the seat of the district.It is the second largest city of the canton, after Frauenfeld, with a population of over 18,000....
,
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
in 1921. After his release from Binswanger's clinic in 1924, Warburg held occasional lectures and seminars between 1925 and 1929, which took place in a private circle or in his library.
Warburg died of a heart attack on 26 October 1929.
Writings
- Das Schlangenritual. Ein Reisebericht. Mit einem Nachwort von Ulrich Raulff. Berlin 1988.
- Die Erneuerung der heidnischen Antike. Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen Literatur. Hrsg. von Horst Bredekamp und M. Diers. Bände. [1932]. Berlin 1998.
- Der Bilderatlas MNEMOSYNE. Hrsg. von Marfred Warnke u. C. Brink. Berlin 2000.
- Gesammelte Schriften (Studienausgabe), Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1998–
Literature
Bibliographies
- Dieter Wuttke: Aby-M.-Warburg-Bibliographie 1866 bis 1995. Werk und Wirkung; mit Annotationen. Baden-Baden: Koerner 1998. ISBN 3-87320-163-1
Biographies
- Ernst H. Gombrich: Aby Warburg. Neuausgabe Hamburg 2006. (PDF, 2.014 KB)
- Bernd Roeck: Der junge Aby Warburg. München 1997.
- Carl Georg Heise: Persönliche Erinnerungen an Aby Warburg. Hrsg. und kommentiert von Björn Biester und Hans-Michael Schäfer (Gratia. Bamberger Schriften zur Renaissanceforschung 43). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005.
- Karen Michels: Aby Warburg — Im Bannkreis der Ideen. C.H. Beck. München 2007.
Monographs
- S. Ferreti: Cassirer, Panofsky and Warburg: Symbol, Art and History. London, New Haven 1989.
- Horst Bredekamp, Michael Diers, Charlotte Schoell-Glass (Hrsg.): Aby Warburg. Akten des internat. Symposiums Hamburg 1990. Weinheim 1991.
- P. Schmidt: Aby Warburg und die Ikonologie. Mit e. Anhang unbekannter Quellen zur Geschichte der Internat. Gesellschaft für ikonographische Studien von D. Wuttke. 2. Aufl. Wiesbaden 1993.
- Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Aby Warburg und der Antisemitismus. Kulturwissenschaft als Geistespolitik. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1998. ISBN 3-596-14076-5
- Georges Didi-Huberman, L'image survivante: histoire de l'art et temps des fantômes selon Aby Warburg. Les Éd. de Minuit, Paris 2002. ISBN 2-7073-1772-1
- Hans-Michael Schäfer: Die kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg. Geschichte und Persönlichkeit der Bibliothek Warburg mit Berücksichtigung der Bibliothekslandschaft und der Stadtsituation der Freien u. Hansestadt Hamburg zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Berlin 2003.
- Ludwig Binswanger: Aby Warburg: La guarigione infinita. Storia clinica di Aby Warburg. A cura di Davide Stimilli. Vicenza 2005 (auf deutsch: Die unendliche Heilung. Aby Warburgs Krankengeschichte, Zürich/Berlin: diaphanes, 2007, erscheint demnächst).
- Photographs at the Frontier, Nicholas Mann et alii eds., London 1990
- Cora Bender, Thomas Hensel, Erhard Schüttpelz (Hrsg.): Schlangenritual. Der Transfer der Wissensformen vom Tsu'ti'kive der Hopi bis zu Aby Warburgs Kreuzlinger Vortrag. 2007. Akademie Verlag, Berlin. ISBN 978-3-05-004203-9
- Wolfgang Bock: Urbild und magische Hülle.Aby Warburgs Theorie der Astrologie, in: Bock: Astrologie und Aufklärung. Über modernen Aberglauben, Stuttgart: Metzler 1995, pp. 265–254
- Wolfgang Bock: Verborgene Himmelslichter. Sterne als messianische Orientierung. Benjamin, Warburg, in: Bock: Walter Benjamin. Die Rettung der Nacht. Sterne, Melancholie und Messianismus, Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2000, pp. 195–218
External links