‘Aby Warburg, Homo victor’ [A translation (back into English, and with some revisions) of the article that appeared in French: ‘Aby Warburg, Homo victor’, in Cahiers du Musée national d’art moderne 118, 2011/12, 81-101]

Abstract

This essay reflects on the reception of Aby Warburg’s writings in the last several decades. A common theme of the recent literature is that Warburg was misunderstood or misread by the scholars who looked after the library and the legacy in London, in particular Ernst H. Gombrich. Here it is proposed that Gombrich, with his mistrust of traditional aesthetics, his affirmative humanism, and his hopes for a convergence of humanistic studies with the natural sciences, grasped aspects of Warburg’s thought that much of the recent literature has missed.

Keywords

• Warburg
• Warburg institute
• Gombrich
• Baxandall
• Warburg-Haus Hamburg