HART3330 Art Theory Unit Coordinator: Arvi Wattel
CATHERINE COWAN
‘Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America, [1923] by Aby Warburg’ “Not until art history can show…that it sees the work of art in a few more dimensions than it has done so far will our activity again attract the interest of scholars and of the general public.”1 In 2020 the work of art historian Aby Warburg was credited, at the launch of Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne Virtual Exhibition, with “changing the way we see the World.”2 Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America marks the beginning of Warburg’s works translated into English. This essay examines the significance of the lecture, originally published in 1939 as Lecture on the Serpent Ritual, and its importance and his impact. The 1923 lecture is significant as this recollection of his 1896 cultural ethnographic observations of First Nations practices converges with his years of multidisciplinary research and various theories. It also illuminates his early divergence from traditional art theory and art history. The lecture is regarded as Warburg’s most specific explanation of his art theories.3 The now famous story of an early Renaissance art historian’s trip to the pioneer American West is also significant for its profound impact on his work post 1896.4 Importantly, the circumstances of the lecture were a means of Warburg’s personal salvation, and it was not intended for publication.5 In draft notes of 1923 Warburg acknowledged he envisioned his observations of the rituals of “primitives” supported “the formula for my psychological law…I have been searching since 1888.”6 The lecture, ostensibly about the Pueblo Indians, their art and 86
ritual, engages in an early example of ethnological field work7 and comparative cultural ethnology, comparing Pueblo serpent ritual to the serpent as found in Old Testament references and images and Greek mythological sources and imagery.8 This landmark interdisciplinary work of its time and recently labelled a “cult piece,”9 is rich in the lenses that can be applied to the text – insights into the life of a renown Renaissance scholar10, personal musings on First Nations culture and the impact of American modernity, early comparative cultural studies, art historical arguments and a psychological theory of evolution of visual culture arising from the transcendence of our primordial condition.11 The subsequent products of Warburg’s early divergence from traditional art history assumptions and methodology are key. The lecture provided Warburg with a platform to reflect on his lifelong pursuit of the analysis of paganism.12 Warburg turned indirectly to his earlier theory of conflicts and principles of polarity, set out in his 1888 thesis on Botticelli’s role of the Mimetic in the history of representation.13 In his references to classical
Aby Warburg, Kachina dancers, Hopi Indians rain maker, Shongopavi pueblo, 1900.
