Saturn and Melancholy remains an iconic text in art history, intellectual history, and the study of culture, despite being long out of print in English. Rooted in the tradition established by Aby Warburg and the Warburg Library, this book has deeply influenced understandings of the interrelations between the humanities disciplines since its first publication in English in 1964. This new edition makes the original English text available for the first time in decades. Saturn and Melancholy offers an unparalleled inquiry into (...) the origin and development of the philosophical and medical theories on which the ancient conception of the temperaments was based and discusses their connections to astrological and religious ideas. It also traces representations of melancholy in literature and the arts up to the sixteenth century, culminating in a landmark analysis of Dürer's most famous engraving, Melencolia I. This edition features Raymond Klibansky's additional introduction and bibliographical amendments for the German edition, as well as translations of source material and 155 original illustrations. An essay on the complex publication history of this pathbreaking project - which almost did not see the light of day - covers more than eighty years, including its more recent heritage. Making new a classic book that has been out of print for over four decades, this expanded edition presents fresh insights about Saturn and Melancholy and its legacy as a precursor to modern interdisciplinary studies. (shrink)

Objections arise to the concept of artistic intention based upon the psychology of a period. Here too we experience trends or volitions which can only be explained by precisely those artistic creations which in their own turn demand an explanation on the basis of these trends and volitions. Thus "Gothic" man or the "primitive" from whose alleged existence we wish to explain a particular artistic product is in truth the hypostatized impression which has been culled from the works of art (...) themselves. Or it is a question of intentions and evaluations which have become conscious as they find their formulation in the contemporary theory of art or in contemporary art criticism. Thus these formulations, just like the individual theoretical statements of the artists themselves, can once more only be phenomena parallel to the artistic products of the epoch; they cannot already contain their interpretation. Here again this parallel phenomenon would, in its entirety, represent an extraordinarily interesting object of humanistic investigation, but it would be incapable of defining in detail a methodologically comprehensible volition. So, too, the view of art which accompanies a period's artistic output can express the artistic volition of the period in itself but cannot put a name to it for us. This view can be of eminent significance when we are seeking a logical explanation for the perception of tendencies dominating at a given time and thus also for the judgment of artistic volition at that time, which must also be interpreted.Erwin Panofsky, the renowned art historian, was professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, until his death in 1968. Among his many books and articles are Meaning in the Visual Arts, Early Netherlandish Painting, and Renaissance and Renascenes in Western Art. Kenneth Northcott is professor of German and comparative literature at the University of Chicago and the translator of Arnold Hauser's Sociology of Art . Joel Snyder is chairman of the committee on general studies in the humanities at the University of Chicago. (shrink)

In the eleventh of his Antiquarian Letters, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing discusses a phrase from Lucian's description of the painting by Zeuxis called A Family of Centaurs: ‘at the top of the painting a centaur is leaning down as if from an observation point, smiling’ . ‘This as if from an observation point, Lessing notes, obviously implies that Lucian himself was uncertain whether this figure was positioned further back, or was at the same time on higher ground. We need to recognize (...) the logic of ancient bas-reliefs where figures further to the back look over those at the front, not because they are actually positioned above them but because they are meant to appear as if standing behind.'1 · 1. The passage is in George Lessing, Briefe, antiquarischen Inhalts , p. 81. Panofsky's discussion does not note that the original text of Lucian makes clear that what is described is a copy of the original painting . This means that some of the issues of misunderstanding situated by Lessing and Panofsky in Lucian's court may in principle be attributable to the copyist. This makes no difference to the conceptual thrust of Panofsky's case.—Trans. (shrink)

In dit klassieke essay van de grote kunshistoricus Erwin Panfosky komt vast te staan dat het zinnetje ‘Et in Arcadia ego’, van oudsher te vinden op kunstwerken en in verhalen die Arcadië als thema hebben, tegenwoordig een andere betekenis krijgt dan vroeger. Waar wij het simpelweg vertalen als ‘Ook ik was in Arcadië’, een vertaling die past bij ons beeld van een idyllisch, pastoraal landschap, had het oorspronkelijk een veel minder onschuldige lading. Overtuigend toont Panofsky aan, door te verwijzen naar (...) onder meer Vergilius, Sannazaro en Guercino, dat de ‘ik’ die in het citaat spreekt niemand minder is dan de Dood. De juiste vertaling is dan het sinistere, moralistische ‘Ook in Arcadië heers ik, de Dood’: de Arcadiërs wordt gemaand hun sterven te gedenken. Panofsky maakt duidelijk dat de foutieve interpretatie, met alle gevolgen van dien voor het arcadisch thema, zijn oorsprong heeft bij Nicolas Poussins beroemde Et in Arcadia Ego-composities. Zijn essay maakt dat het lieflijke arcadische landschap alsnog zijn onschuld verliest, en dat ook voor ons de dood opnieuw tot Arcadië toetreedt. (shrink)