Italian renaissance between word and image: an analyse of Aby M. Warburgs studies on antiquity and florentine bourgeois culture in 15th century

• Grant number: 14/07921-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: July 01, 2014
• End date: May 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Claudia Valladão de Mattos Avolese
• Grantee: Serzenando Alves Vieira Neto
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The historian, from Hamburg, Aby Warburg (1866 - 1929) is set among the most prominent art historians of the twentieth century. Known for its deep scholarly work, for the association of his name to the iconographic method and, above all, by its fascinating hoarding which resulted in one of the most notable research institutes in the history of art and culture in the twentieth century. His intellectual output was devoted to the history of art and culture, these understood as a unit, since in all his work he has always sought to understand art beyond its formal characteristics, chasing the meaning of the work in the historical and cultural background in which it was involved, perceiving it as coming from specific historical relationship of individuals, the relationship between art and religion, philosophy and literature, thus making an art history where emerge, in close relationship, word and image. His research topics which passed from the Florentine bourgeois society and the influx of Nordic art in Italy to the transmission of astrological knowledge and magical divination practices at the time of the Reformation were consecrated as fundamental for later scholars, either by their original findings, either by their methodological directions. Currently the work of Warburg becomes increasingly discussed and studied as one of the most important productions of the last century. This research is specifically intended to stimulate discussion of the historical and artistic legacy of this historian, with a special focus on his writings on Antiquity and Florentine bourgeois culture of the fifteenth century. This cut brings this research close of the studies from youth, as well as his first years working as a historian, since it is precisely this period that connects more directly to Florence, when he seeks to uncover this rich historical and cultural background. Here is necessary to appoint, three main reasons justifying this research: (a) the name of Warburg has been gradually known in Brazil, however, lacks the place that it deserves and its effective incorporation into historiographical debates; (b) the focus of this research and its methodology enables the perception of the dialogue of historical and artistic production of Aby Warburg in his time, indeed, it is of crucial importance to pursue the gaps left by critical bibliography, specially in the case of the intimate relationship with the philosophical context and the context of art historiography; (c) finally, recent publications have brought unpublished materials that can shed lighton the various theoretical and philosophical issues that underlie Warburg's work. Therefore, this research is part of a debate on the work of this important historian perceiving it within a very fruitful time of development of the history of ideas and the historiography of art. The analysis of methodological perspectives that underpinned his research and allowed many original results,brings to knowledge the reasons underlying the current interest in his work , and more, allow to understand better an crucial episode in the history of the consolidation of the History of Art, as well on an important method of analysis: the iconographic. (AU)