The Absorption of the Expressive Values of the Past

This key text offers the most extensive outline of Aby Warburg’s speculations about social memory, the origin of artistic expression and the psychological energies driving the history of European culture from classical antiquity onwards. According to Warburg, the conflicting responses to the legacy of classical antiquity directly informed the styles of the visual arts, from the realism of Netherlandish art to the heroic forms of the Italian Renaissance. Warburg’s theory of culture engages with Nietzsche’s ideas on classical antiquity, its legacy and the meaning of the Dionysus-Apollo duality. It is also informed by empathy theory, contemporary anthropological thought, evolutionary theory, the study of mythology, and biological conceptions of memory.