DOI issue:
Nr. 3-4
DOI article:Recenzje
DOI article:Miziołek, Jerzy: [Rezension von: Aby Warburg, The renewal of pagan antiquity: contribution to the cultural history of the European Renaissance]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49350#0664
Recenzje
643
steeped in thoughts, albeit profoundly melancholie
(ill. 1). He died two years later as the result of a
heart-attack.
The Getty’s Warburg volume opens with an In-
troduction by Kurt W. Forster. His interest in War-
burg is a long-standing one. He is the author of two
major papers on Warburg published in 1976 and
19962. Forster’s Introduction is both illuminating
and well-written. It is certainly one of the most re-
vealing texts ever produced on Aby Warburg. Al-
though he is not the first to utilize this approach,
Forster is skillful in balancing the biographical data
with a elear presentation of most of the texts includ-
ed in the volume. Thus, the reader is able not only to
learn a great deal about Warburg’s life, his research
in Florence and the United States and the method of
his writing, but also about the importance of both his
texts and the Library he founded for past and present
studies in the humanities. Morę than thirty photo-
graphs selected for the Introduction are very helpful
in following Forster’s presentation. Thanks to these
images, one can better understand the phenomenon
of Warburg’s personality, his melancholy and - to
some degree - the naturę of his last projeets. How-
ever, given the fact that Forster knows so well War-
burg’s Study ofRitual and Art on two Continents one
may ask why the volume doesn’t include Warburg’s
famous paper of 1923 - A Lecture on Serpent Ritu-
al3. It not only opens a new possibility for studies in
the visual arts on the borders of anthropology, et-
nography and psychology but is also an important
contribution to our understanding of the classical tra-
dition. Thus it would conform perfectly to the main
theme of the book.
Why is the English edition of Aby Warburg’s
texts so important and why does their author not
cease to fascinate and stimulate us some seventy
years after his death? In answering this ąuestion it is
worth starting with the present edition of his works.
Apart from the fact that the ąuality of illustrative
materiał could be much better, one should express
profound gratitude to the Getty Research Institute
for the production of the Warburg volume. We
should be thankful not only for David Britt’s excel-
lent translation of Warburg’s texts but also for trans-
lations of all the citations (including those in the
Addenda) from the Italian and the Latin, produced
by Caroline Beamish and Carol Lanham. It was also
2 K. FORSTER, ‘Aby Warburg’s History of Art: Collec-
tive Memory and the Social Mediation of Images’, Dae-
dalus, 105,1976, pp. 169-188); ‘Aby Warburg: His Study
ofRitual and Art on two Continents’, October, 77, 1996,
pp. 5-24). The latter, originally published in German in
1991.
an excellent idea to provide the volume with the Bib-
liography (which includes all works cited by War-
burg) and extremely useful Index which helps to
penetrate not only the texts themselves but also the
materiał in appendixes and addenda. It is well known
that Warburg never ceased to work on his published
writings, providing them with additions and correc-
tions which are fuli of important ideas and observa-
tions. All these writings are included in the addenda
published first in the German edition of 1932 and
now translated into English. It is admirable to find
out that in the Getty volume the illustrative materiał
has been precisely checked. However, one may won-
der why the editor has retained the original captions
(which are in some cases erroneus), but included
current Information in the illustration credits. Thus,
for example, the caption for the Jacopo del Sellaio’s
spalliera depicting Orpheus in the Underworld (in
the book ill. 103, here ill. 3) still bears the same mis-
take produced in 1932, while the Information about
its proper whereabouts is to be found only at the end
of the book (p. 785)4 . Let us add here that this spal-
liera is housed not in the Lanckoroński collection,
which sińce 1994 is kept at the Royal Wawel Castle,
Cracow but in Kiev. However, both panels derive
from the same set of spalliere', the Lanckoroński
piece depicts Orpheus charming animals with his
musie (ill. 4).
Now, to address the ąuestion of the importance
of Warburg’s texts for the study of visual arts. Al-
ready in his doctoral thesis he had shown how Botti-
celli’s mythological masterpieces, namely the Birth
of Venus and the Primavera, reflect cultural phe-
nomena of the time. He not only convincingly re-
vealed both literary and formal sources of the paint-
ings but also managed to reconstruct their
sociohistorical milieu. For us today, is obvious that
in order to approach the content of the paintings de-
picting such sophisticated subjects as those pro-
duced by Botticelli one should ask about the role of
the patron and his learned advisers. In the times of
the fin-de-siecle aestheticism Warburg’s method was
remarkably original. Thus he entered the matter of
Lorenzo the Magnificenfs patronage, as well as the
matter of both ancient and modern poetry read in his
circle. As Charles Dempsey put it: *virtually nonę of
the serious scholars who have studied the painting
has ąuestioned the essential correctness of War-
burg’s estabilishment of the textual foundation for
3 It was also published in English as early as in 1938, in
the Journal ofthe Warburg Institute, vol. 2.
4 For this and other spalliera panels from the same set of
panels see E. CALLMANN, ‘Jacopo del Sellaio, the Or-
pheus Myth, and the Painting for the private citizens’,
Foliae Historiae Artium, 4, 1998, pp. 143-158.
643
steeped in thoughts, albeit profoundly melancholie
(ill. 1). He died two years later as the result of a
heart-attack.
The Getty’s Warburg volume opens with an In-
troduction by Kurt W. Forster. His interest in War-
burg is a long-standing one. He is the author of two
major papers on Warburg published in 1976 and
19962. Forster’s Introduction is both illuminating
and well-written. It is certainly one of the most re-
vealing texts ever produced on Aby Warburg. Al-
though he is not the first to utilize this approach,
Forster is skillful in balancing the biographical data
with a elear presentation of most of the texts includ-
ed in the volume. Thus, the reader is able not only to
learn a great deal about Warburg’s life, his research
in Florence and the United States and the method of
his writing, but also about the importance of both his
texts and the Library he founded for past and present
studies in the humanities. Morę than thirty photo-
graphs selected for the Introduction are very helpful
in following Forster’s presentation. Thanks to these
images, one can better understand the phenomenon
of Warburg’s personality, his melancholy and - to
some degree - the naturę of his last projeets. How-
ever, given the fact that Forster knows so well War-
burg’s Study ofRitual and Art on two Continents one
may ask why the volume doesn’t include Warburg’s
famous paper of 1923 - A Lecture on Serpent Ritu-
al3. It not only opens a new possibility for studies in
the visual arts on the borders of anthropology, et-
nography and psychology but is also an important
contribution to our understanding of the classical tra-
dition. Thus it would conform perfectly to the main
theme of the book.
Why is the English edition of Aby Warburg’s
texts so important and why does their author not
cease to fascinate and stimulate us some seventy
years after his death? In answering this ąuestion it is
worth starting with the present edition of his works.
Apart from the fact that the ąuality of illustrative
materiał could be much better, one should express
profound gratitude to the Getty Research Institute
for the production of the Warburg volume. We
should be thankful not only for David Britt’s excel-
lent translation of Warburg’s texts but also for trans-
lations of all the citations (including those in the
Addenda) from the Italian and the Latin, produced
by Caroline Beamish and Carol Lanham. It was also
2 K. FORSTER, ‘Aby Warburg’s History of Art: Collec-
tive Memory and the Social Mediation of Images’, Dae-
dalus, 105,1976, pp. 169-188); ‘Aby Warburg: His Study
ofRitual and Art on two Continents’, October, 77, 1996,
pp. 5-24). The latter, originally published in German in
1991.
an excellent idea to provide the volume with the Bib-
liography (which includes all works cited by War-
burg) and extremely useful Index which helps to
penetrate not only the texts themselves but also the
materiał in appendixes and addenda. It is well known
that Warburg never ceased to work on his published
writings, providing them with additions and correc-
tions which are fuli of important ideas and observa-
tions. All these writings are included in the addenda
published first in the German edition of 1932 and
now translated into English. It is admirable to find
out that in the Getty volume the illustrative materiał
has been precisely checked. However, one may won-
der why the editor has retained the original captions
(which are in some cases erroneus), but included
current Information in the illustration credits. Thus,
for example, the caption for the Jacopo del Sellaio’s
spalliera depicting Orpheus in the Underworld (in
the book ill. 103, here ill. 3) still bears the same mis-
take produced in 1932, while the Information about
its proper whereabouts is to be found only at the end
of the book (p. 785)4 . Let us add here that this spal-
liera is housed not in the Lanckoroński collection,
which sińce 1994 is kept at the Royal Wawel Castle,
Cracow but in Kiev. However, both panels derive
from the same set of spalliere', the Lanckoroński
piece depicts Orpheus charming animals with his
musie (ill. 4).
Now, to address the ąuestion of the importance
of Warburg’s texts for the study of visual arts. Al-
ready in his doctoral thesis he had shown how Botti-
celli’s mythological masterpieces, namely the Birth
of Venus and the Primavera, reflect cultural phe-
nomena of the time. He not only convincingly re-
vealed both literary and formal sources of the paint-
ings but also managed to reconstruct their
sociohistorical milieu. For us today, is obvious that
in order to approach the content of the paintings de-
picting such sophisticated subjects as those pro-
duced by Botticelli one should ask about the role of
the patron and his learned advisers. In the times of
the fin-de-siecle aestheticism Warburg’s method was
remarkably original. Thus he entered the matter of
Lorenzo the Magnificenfs patronage, as well as the
matter of both ancient and modern poetry read in his
circle. As Charles Dempsey put it: *virtually nonę of
the serious scholars who have studied the painting
has ąuestioned the essential correctness of War-
burg’s estabilishment of the textual foundation for
3 It was also published in English as early as in 1938, in
the Journal ofthe Warburg Institute, vol. 2.
4 For this and other spalliera panels from the same set of
panels see E. CALLMANN, ‘Jacopo del Sellaio, the Or-
pheus Myth, and the Painting for the private citizens’,
Foliae Historiae Artium, 4, 1998, pp. 143-158.