WARBURG, ABY MORITZ

WARBURG, ABY MORITZ (1866–1929), German historian of art and civilization. Warburg was born in Hamburg. His main field of study was the intellectual and social context of Renaissance art. His works such as Bildniskunst und Florentinisches Buergertum (1902); Die Grablegung Roger van der Weydens in den Uffizien (1903); and Francesco Sassettis letztwillige Verfuegung (1907) were concerned with the relationship between classical antiquity and the Christian religion in the Renaissance. Italienische Kunst und internationale Astrologie im Palazzo Schifanoja zu Ferrara (1912) revealed the importance of classical astrology in Renaissance art. Heidnisch-antike Weissagung in Wort und Bild zu Luthers Zeiten (1920) and Orientalisierende Astrologie (1926) also discussed the beliefs and superstitions of the period. In these works and in numerous essays, Warburg developed an interdisciplinary approach to art history, which aimed to investigate the psychological and cultural role of symbolism in general. Warburg founded the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg, which opened officially in Hamburg in 1926, and was transferred to London in 1933 when Hitler came to power. In London it became known as the Warburg Institute and was incorporated in 1944 into the University of London. It consisted of 60,000 volumes and 20,000 photographs, and its purpose was to extend Warburg's own researches by tracing the influence of classical antiquity on all subsequent civilizations. The work was carried out by a group of mainly Jewish scholars which included erwin panofsky and ernst cassirer . The lectures given at the Institute were published as Vortraege der Bibliothek Warburg. The Institute publishes the journals Studies of the Warburg Institute and the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, and the Warburg Haus publishes Warburg's own papers under the title Gesammelte Schriften. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. Bing, Aby M. Warburg (1958); F. Saxl, in: Vortraege der Bibliothek Warburg, 1921 – 1922 (1923); K.G. Heise, Persoenliche Erinnerungen an Aby Warburg (1947). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: E.H. Gombrich and F. Saxl, Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography (1986); A.M. Meyers, "Aby Warburg in His Early Correspondence," in: American Scholar, 57 (1988); H. Liebeschuetz, "Aby Warburg as Interpreter of Civilization" in Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (1971); C. Naber, "Pompeji in Neu-Mexico: Aby Warburg's amerikanische Reise," in Freibeutere, 38 (1988); B. Roeck, Der junge Aby Warburg (1997); C. Schoell-Glass, Aby Warburg und der Antisemitismus: Kulturwissenschaft als Geistespolitik (1998); U. Raulff, Wilde Energien: vier Versuche zu Aby Warburg (2003); E.R. Woodfield, Art History as Cultural History: Warburg's Projects (2001).