Aby Warburg: His Aims and Methods: An Anniversary Lecture E.H. Gombrich Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 62. (1999), pp. 268-282. Stable URL: fip:flinks jstor-org/sici sici=007S-4390% 281999°%2962%3C268%3 AAWHAAM®352.0,CO%3B2-S Journal ofthe Warburg and Courtauld Instaces is currently published by The Warbucy Institute Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at flip: feworwjtor org/aboutterms.htmal. ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in par, that unless you fave obtained pcior permission, you may not dowaload an cnt isus of @ journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe ISTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial uss. Please contact the publisher cegarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at bupsforww.jsto.org/joumals/warburghtnl. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transtnission. ISTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding ISTOR, please contact support @jstor.org- hup:thrww itor orgy Fei Apr 28 09:31:50 2006ABY WARBURG: HIS AIMS AND METHODS An Anniversary Lecture EH. Gombrich by Warburg died seventy years ago, on 26 October 1929 in his sixty-fourth year. Twas at that time in my second year at Vienna University, studying the history of art, but! do not think that the news of his death reached me, or that | knew much about him, though my teacher, Julius von Schlosser, had a high regard for his erudition. It was only when I came to England, almastsixty-three years ago, that I was assigned the task to assist Gertrud Bing in publishing the vast array of his drafts and notes. [ was to use these after her death in writing Warburg's Inécllectual Biography, and his oeuvre has never been far from my mind. Do not expect a solemn address for the occasion! As indicated in my title, I feel the best tribute I can pay him is to explain to the best of my power, sine ira et studio, how he saw the purpose of art history and the methods it should employ, for [find that people tend to have the weirdest ideas abouc these aims and methods, There is no better way of finding out what a writer meant than to attempt to state his meaning in different words, preferably in another language. Now, at last, seventy ‘years after Warburg's death, his collected works have been made available to English readers who have no German? In my Intetlectuat Biography, { have wrestled myself with what Warburg once jokingly called his “Aalsuppenstil’, “eebsoup style’, and so ‘can appreciate the work of David Britt, author of this excellent translation. I only wish the publishers had also had an elementary consideration for readers, for the texts are enshrined in such a heavy tome that it needs elephantine strength even to put it an the table. I very much regret that obstacle Yet on this occasion [ cannot regret the form the volume has taken. It can serve me as a demonstratio ad ocules that | cannot possibly deal with Warburg's oeuvre in one hour. Thave co select a derail, Warburg, after all, has often been quoted that ‘der liebe Gott steckt im Detail’, “God dwells in the details” The detail I have chosen for my presentation is the peroration from his mast famous paper, which he delivered at the height of his career in October 1912, at the tenth ArtHistorical Congress in Rome: his interpretation of the astrological fresco cycle of the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, painted around 1470 (Fig. 89). He explained his discovery that the theee figures marking each month are known to astrologers as the decans, or the ten-day divinities, and chat the classical gods above, ruling the 1 BH. Gambrick, Aly Hlarurg am Inuglictuot —q. Aly Warburg, Walienische Kunst und [avert Bugraphy, London 1g70s and edition, Oxford ig88. _conale Aswologe im Palazao Schifanoja au Ferrara! > Aby Warburg, The Renawas of Papen Aniguity — Gatanneie Sehefeon, ML, Leipeig #932. PP 459-81. Contributes fo the Cultural Misery of the Eueapean — Gambrich, op-eit, PP 97-5 Fonesssanc, intron, K. W. Fotster, 1. D, Bet, Las angeler 1909ABY WARBURG