The influence of Jacob Burckhardt and Friedrich Nietzsche in Aby Warburgs conception of the Antique

• Grant number: 22/10711-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): June 01, 2023
• Effective date (End): May 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History
• Principal Investigator: Cássio da Silva Fernandes
• Grantee: Raphael Alves D'Antona
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project aims to investigate the work of the german art historian Aby Warburg (1866-1929) in its relation with Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1929), starting from their double influence on the archaic and anticlassic conception of the Antique. Nietzsche and Burckhardt are Warburg's two main sources in building up his concept of the Antique upon these principles. Albeit, the author not only assimilated such conceptions, but also developed them - as in the notion of pathosformeln, for instance. It is proposed here to thematize this development on the hypothesis of this double influence being intrinsic to some of Warburg's fundamental procedures, constituing a dialectical trace to be investigated in its intricacies: the 'destructuring analysis' and the 'struggle for the style'. The research will take place through a systematic study of the texts about the greek culture, in reference to Burckhardt; to the greek art, in reference to Nietzsche; and opening up a route that spreads to Warburg's entire work, focusing on the following articles: (1) Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring, The Art of Portraiture and the Florentine Bourgeoisie, Francesco Sassetti's Last Injunctions to His Sons, Durer and Italian Antiquity, (2) Italian Art and International Astrology in the Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara, The influence of the Sphaera barbarica in the attempting of cosmic orientation in the West, (3) The Emergence of the Antique as a Stylistic Ideal in Early Renaissance Painting, The roman Antique in Ghirlandaio's studio.