Antiquity Unchained
Aby Warburg and the birth of the ‘pathos formula’

The son of a Hamburg banker, Aby Warburg (1866–1929) was one of the best-known German-speaking art theoreticians of the twentieth century. His studies on the reception of Antiquity in the Renaissance, which made him world-famous, are still as topical as they ever were, and continue to exert a fascinating attraction on scholars.

On 5 October 1905 Warburg gave a talk at the 48th meeting of the Deutsche Philologen und Schulmänner in Hamburg on Albrecht Dürer and Italian Antiquity. He focused on Dürer’s ‘Death of Orpheus’, dating from 1494. Warburg had discovered various classical models in this drawing, and in consequence proposed the thesis that the artists of the early Renaissance in Italy and Germany used the formal repertoire of the ancient world. With these so-called ‘pathos formulae’ Aby Warbug went down in art history. In his talk, he referred not only to Dürer’s Orpheus drawing but also to the artist’s prints and the copper engravings of Andrea Mantegna. All these works were on show at a special exhibition during the congress.
‘Antiquity Unchained’ is a reconstruction of this legendary exhibition of 1905. The Wallraf is staging it for the first time in co-operation with the Hamburg Kunsthalle.

With the kind support of

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Tuesday to Sunday   10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Every Thursday open in the evening till 10 p.m.
Public Holiday   10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Closed Mondays.

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Ulrike Michel

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Regina Kühnelt

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