Aby Warburg in America Again. With an Edition of His Unpublished Correspondence With Edwin R. a. Seligman %281927-1928%29

8/13/2019 Aby Warburg in America Again. With an Edition of His Unpublished Correspondence With Edwin R. a. Seligman %2

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The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

Aby Warburg in America Again: With an Edition of His Unpublished Correspondence withEdwin R. A. Seligman (1927-1928)Author(s): Davide Stimilli, Aby Warburg, Edwin R. A. SeligmanSource: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 48, Permanent/Impermanent (Autumn, 2005),pp. 193-206Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard Collegeacting through the Peabody Museum ofArchaeology and EthnologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20167687.

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Aby Warburg inAmerica againWith an edition of his unpublished correspondence withEdwin R. A. Seligman (1927-1928)DAVIDESTIMULI

In recent years, the work of Aby Warburg (1866-1929)has attracted renewed interest in the United States,focusing on his famous trip to the Hopi regions of Arizonaand New Mexico in the waning years of the nineteenthcentury. The trip took place in 1896 and became the topicof the equally famous Lecture on Serpent Ritual 1 that

Warburg delivered on April 21, 1923,while hospitalizedin Ludwig Binswanger's sanatorium for the mentally ill inKreuzungen, Switzerland.The correspondence published here for the first time2provides the best available record of a still largelyunexplored chapter inWarburg's life: His thwartedattempt to return to America.3 Ina letter dated October3, 1905, to Charles Eliot Norton, whom he had met atHarvard University ten years earlier through the goodoffices of James Loeb, Warburg prophetically wrote: Idare not hope that Imight come to America again. 4

Undoubtedly, however, he never gave up such a hope,and in the last years of his life, as this correspondencereveals, he came very close indeed to turning it intoreality. But in the end, he could not overcome theformidable opposition of his relatives, on both sides ofthe Atlantic, and the authoritative advice of Binswanger,who was credited for his recovery and was called uponfor a consultation on the matter by Aby's brother, Max.

Warburg's first American trip was triggered by thewedding of another brother of his, Paul, to Nina Loeb,James's sister, on October 1, 1895. This family event ledalmost by chance to its appendix, an expedition to theAmerican West, which occurred on the spur of the

moment, as itwere, because of Aby's distaste for whathe perceived as the emptiness of civilization in theAmerican East. 5 That the second trip never happened,on the other hand, isparticularly intriguing because itwas planned well ahead and Warburg argued his caseforcefully, though unsuccessfully. Warburg's failure tomake his own work accessible to an American layaudience partly accounts for his belated reception inthis country.The publication of the correspondence with EdwinRobert Anderson Seligman (1861-1939) is a necessarycomplement to any future definitive biography of Aby

Warburg;6 it is also a proof ofWarburg's enduringinterest in the question of Fortuna. The topic of AlfredDoren's lecture, Fortuna in the Middle Ages and in theRenaissance (Fortuna imMittelalter und in derRenaissance)7 was obviously of great interest toWarburgsince his 1907 study on Francesco Sassetti.8 While

The correspondence between Aby Warburg and Edwin R. A.Seligman is preserved among the Edwin R. A. Seligman Papers, RareBook and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, with the exceptionof the first letter in the series,which Ipublish froma copy inthe

Warburg Institute Archive. Iwish to thank Jean Ashton, director of theRare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, and CharlesHope, director of theWarburg Institute, for having graciously grantedme permission to publish these documents. Seligman's letters arereproduced in their original English. Warburg's letters are inGerman,and have been translated by me; Iwish to thank Gin iAlhadeff for hereditorial help with their translation.1. First published under that title in an English version by W. F.Mainland in the Journal of the Warburg Institute 2 (1938-1939), pp.277-292, then inGerman by Ulrich Raulff as Schlangenritual: EinReisebericht (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1988), and in a

newEnglish versionby Michael P. Steinberg under the title Images from the Region of the

Pueblo Indians of North America (Ithaca and London: CornellUniversity Press, 1995).

2. With the exception of the letter of August 17, 1927, which Ipublished in an Italian translation in autaut 321-322 (2004), pp. 3031, from the carbon copy preserved in theWarburg Institute Archive.3. In the final pages of the essay accompanying his translation( AbyWarburg's Kreuzungen Lecture: A Reading, pp. 106-109),

Steinberg discusses Warburg's contacts with Paul J. Sachs, associatedirector of the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and Franz Boas,professor of anthropology at Columbia University, in view of the 1928trip, but is unaware of Seligman's prominent role inWarburg's scheme.4. Quoted inAnne Marie Meyer, AbyWarburg inHis Early

Correspondence, The American Scholar 57 (1988): p. 450.

5. Cit. in E. H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg: An IntellectualBiography, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1986), p. 88.6. Already invokedby CarlGeorg Heise in 1947 (Pers?nlicheErinnerungen an Aby Warburg, New York 1947, p. 45), thisdesideratum has only been partially fulfilled by Gombrich's stillindispensable intellectual biography.7. Delivered on March 24, 1923, published under the same titleinVortr?geder BibliothekWarburg 2 (1922-1923) (Leipzig:Teubner,1924), pp. 71-144.

8. Francesco Sassettis letztwillige Verf?gung, first published inKunstwissenschaftliche Beitr?ge August Schmarsow gewidmet (Leipzig:Hiersemann, 1907), pp. 129-152, reprinted inWarburg's Gesammelte


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194 RES 48 AUTUMN 2005

editing the manuscript of Sassetti's last injunctions to hissons, Warburg had been struck by the unorthodoxinvocation of a Roman goddess in the will of thisChristian merchant. One may argue that the question

Warburg asked in 1907: Why was this particular pagandeity, Fortuna, revived by the Renaissance as the stylisticembodiment of worldly energy, 9 led him to theinvestigation of the revival of ancient paganism in theRenaissance that was to be the main focus of his

ensuing scholarship. In considering the fate of Fortunaitself,Warburg was moreover posing a question thatremains central to any interpretation of theRenaissance:10 How is itpossible to reconcile the

emerging consciousness of human freedom andindividuality with the still pervasive acceptance of the

agency of fate in human life? (The most striking instanceof their coexistence in the Renaissance is the ubiquitousbelief in astrology, another topic, not by chance, dear toWarburg.) After reading all ofWarburg's publications inview of a first projected edition of his collected writings

(as early as 1921), Fritz Saxl points out that the turningpoint (derWendepunkt) inWarburg's uvre appears tohim to be precisely the Sassetti essay: From thatmoment on, every work ismore and more not just ahistorical but rather a human document. 11 Warburgseems to have shared Saxl's assessment, since he choseprecisely the Sassetti essay and Doren's lecture to submitto Seligman as examples of his approach to art history,and their treatment of Fortuna as the best case studies ofhis method at work. And certainly his continuing

devotion to Fortuna is a thread uniting the two halves ofWarburg's life, ifone can divide it up that way.12

Warburg may have already met Seligman, who was toretire in 1931 after a distinguished career as McVickarprofessor of political economy at Columbia University,on the occasion of his first trip to America. Inadditionto the book that Seligman sent toWarburg at the time ofthis correspondence, The Economics of InstallmentSelling: A Study InConsumers' Credit, With SpecialReference To The Automobile (1927), two more books ofSeligman's are present in the library of theWarburgInstitute, a circumstance that may suggest previouscontacts between the two: The Currency Problem AndThe Present Financial Situation: A Series Of Addresses

Delivered At Columbia University 7907-/908(1908),and The Economic Interpretation Of History (1907; allthree published by Columbia University Press).An important liaison between the two was certainlyJames Loeb, the founder of the Loeb Classical Library,who had, since the wedding of PaulWarburg and hissister Nina, moved permanently to Germany. In a letterdated March 29, 1923, Loeb suggested toWarburg thathe send his essay on Sassetti to Seligman, who wouldread itwith interest.13 However, Warburg, who was atthe time still in Kreuzungen, did not take up thesuggestion until he was completely recovered, at leastfrom his point of view, and started to entertain the ideaof a possible return to America. This must have seemedto him a way of coming full circle and facing the Eastcoast from which he had escaped the first time around,though his dislike of New York isstill palpable. But thetripwas not meant to be just a sightseeing tour.Warburgexpected on his return from America to bring backcompleted his atlas Mnemosyne^4 an ambition thatBinswanger dismissed as wholly unrealistic.15 That otherdaring project ofWarburg's last years, his haymaking ina thunderstorm (Heuernte bei Gewitter)/^6 alsoremained on paper.

Schriften (Berlin: Teubner, 1932), vol. 1, pp. 127-158 (with the samepagination in the new Studienausgabe [Berlin: Akademie Verlag,1998], vol. 1.1); trans. David Britt, Francesco Sassetti's Last Injunctionsto His Sons, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity: Contributions to the

Cultural History of the European Renaissance (Los Angeles: GettyResearch Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999), pp.223-262.

9. Warum gerade im Symbole dieser wiedererwecktenheidnischen G?ttin die Renaissance ihren Anteil an der Stilbildung

weltzugewandter Energie fordert und erh?lt ( Verf?gung, see above,p. 145; Injunctions, see above, p. 240).

10. Starting with Cassirer's Individuum und Kosmos in derPhilosophie der Renaissance (Leipzig: Teubner, 1927), which hededicated toWarburg on the latter's 60th birthday, and one of whosechapters is devoted precisely to this question: Freiheit undNotwendigkeit in der Philosophie der Renaissance (pp. 77-129).11. Warburg Institute Archive, General Correspondence, Saxl to

Warburg, April 1, 1921. That this essay was read with particularinterest by Ludwig Binswanger, as well, is proven by an entry in his

diary on September 16, 1924 (quoted in Sigmund Freud and LudwigBinswanger, Briefwechsel 1908-1938, ed. Gerhard Fichtner[Frankfurt/M.: Fischer, 1992], p. 200).

12. The ongoing edition ofWarburg's unpublished materials iscorrecting the misperception thatWarburg's biography may be indeedneatly divided in two periods, i.e., before and after the Kreuzungenyears.

13. Warburg Institute Archive, General Correspondence.14. Universit?tsarchiv T?bingen, UAT 443/31, Warburg toBinswanger, July 12, 1928.

15. Universit?tsarchiv T?bingen, UAT 443/31, Binswanger toWarburg, July 18, 1928.16. Gertrud Bing's translation, in Fritz Saxl (1890-1948): Amemoir, Fritz Saxl (1890-1948): A Volume of Memorial Essaysfrom His Friends in England, ?d. D. J.Gordon (London: Nelson, 1957),p. 17.


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Stimuli: Aby Warburg inAmerica again 195

Even if they already knew each other, a moremomentous meeting between the two occurred in July1927, when Seligman visited Europe with a mandate torecruit European contributors to the project of anEncyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, of which he wasthe editor-in-chief. The project that Seligman wasembarking on was a most ambitious one, and certain toattract Warburg's attention. Itwas launched inApril1927,17 and in the summer of that year the editor-inchief went to Europe in order to enlist the support ofthe leading European scholars. 18 Seligman turned toMax Warburg for hospitality inHamburg, as we learnfrom a letter by the latter preserved among the SeligmanPapers, dated April 3, 1927, welcoming Seligman's visit,which was to occur between July 10 and 15. Max quips:

Every road leads to Rome, namely, to Hamburg. 19 Themeeting with Aby occurred then on July 16, 1927, as weknow from the journals of the library,20 and conflictedwith the visit of another scholar, the editor of the

influential literary journal Deutsche Viertelsjahrsschriftf?r Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte. Warburgfelt that Seligman had therefore been rushed throughthe presentation of his plans for a large sociologicalencyclopaedia (forwhich 750,000 dollars wereavailable), and asked him to return the following day.After this second meeting, Warburg's tone wastriumphant: He came, he saw, and Iwon, he boasts,and announces that Seligman immediately decided totake into his own hands the organization of my visit inMarch 1928, and therefore, what ismost important, totalk with Paul. 21Warburg concludes with what seemsin hindsight a rather na?ve optimism: There will be stillseveral difficulties of no small kind to overcome, but Isee?land. The following day he was already checkingthe schedules of steamers for America.22

At the time of Seligman's trip to Europe, the inclusionof art among the topics to be addressed in the

Encyclopaedia seemed to have been agreed upon. Butalready in the Report of Progress of April 1928, thequestion of the inclusion of more or less outlying fields,which have never yet been comprised under the head ofsocial sciences, but which now become necessary or atall events desirable is raised as one of the mostdifficult questions that confront the editors. Such are, forinstance, the problems as to how farwe should dealwith art, with philology, with religion, with educationand the like. 23 In the first chapter of the introduction,signed by Seligman and titled WhatAre the Social

Sciences?, art appears last, after the purely social andthe semi-social sciences, along with biology,geography, medicine, and linguistics, and only a fewlines are devoted to it:

Itgoes without saying that art as creative activity stands incontrast with science, whose objective isanalysis andunderstanding. But artistic creation isdominated by valuesand these are, at least inpart, of social origin. Inthe historyof art there ismuch that helps to explain social institutions,and vice versa. No one who wishes to understand theoperation of social laws in the modern world can afford tooverlook the evidence offered by the arts.24

We do not learn from thecorrespondence

whethermedical concerns were paramount in reaching the finaldecision, or whether Warburg's approach wasunpalatable to Seligman and his collaborators. Inanyevent, the entry Art was finally entrusted to a team ofscholars, under the leadership of Irwin Edman. Iquotejust a passage from the section on modern art, by Edwin

Avery Park, to give a sense of itsoverall tone:Today, strongly influenced by Cubism, a group of youngAmericans are attempting to throw aside the continentaltradition and paint in their own manner. ?JohnMartin,Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Burchfield, and Charles Demuthare mentioned.] All of these artists confine themselvesalmost

entirelyto the small picture, since economicpressure has had its effect on wall space. There are fewhomes today large enough to hang a big canvas, a factor of

great importance inpresent day development.25It is hard to imagine how Warburg could have faredin that company. His name, as far as Ican tell, surfacesat least once in the Encyclopaedia, in the bibliographyto the article on Astrology, penned by the historian ofscience Charles Singer.26 Among the collaborators to the

17. Seligman Rapers, Box 38, Encyclopaedia of the SocialSciences, letter by Alvin Johnson, president of the New School forSocial Research and managing editor of the Encyclopaedia, to F. P.Keppel, The Carnegie Corporation, October 31, 1930.18. Seligman Papers, Box 38, Encyclopaedia of the SocialSciences, Report of Progress by the Editor-in-Chief, December, 1927,p. 4.

19. Seligman Rapers, Box 51, Uncataloged CorrespondenceReceived.20. Cf. Studienausgabe, vol. VII: Tageb?cher der

Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg, ed. K. Michels and C.Schoell-Glass (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001), p. 120.21. Ibid.22. Cf. Tageb?cher, note 20, p. 121.

23. Seligman Papers, Box 38, see note 18, April 1928, p. 5.24. Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, 15 vols. (New York:Macmillan, 1930-1935), vol. I,p. 7, c. 2.

25. Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. II,p. 257, c. 2.26. Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. I,p. 289, c. 1.


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project was another professor at Columbia Universityand long-time acquaintance ofWarburg's, Franz Boas, towhom the entry Anthropology is due. Strangelyenough, the entry Positivism was entrusted to theItalian philosopher Guido De Ruggero, certainly noadherent of the doctrine, but rather a proponent ofidealism, and, incidentally, also a contributor to the

Enciclopedia italiana, a project that was completed inthose very years (1929-1937; the publication of theEncyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, started in 1930,was completed in 1935).

Another factor that may have brought the two men .together at first, besides the familial ties, was theirshared passion for books. Seligman was no unlikelyinterlocutor forWarburg, given his bibliophily. The RareBook and Manuscript Library at Columbia Universityhosts not only Seligman's papers, among which I foundthe still uncataloged correspondence hereby presented,but also one of the world's best and most extensivecollection of books, pamphlets, and manuscripts relatedto economics. We do not know from thecorrespondence whether the two discussed theirrespective collections, but it is certainly likely that

Warburg saw this side of Seligman's personality asanother potential ally in bringing his plan to fruition. Thelibrary was sold to Columbia University at the time of

Seligman's retirement and was supplemented by 6,000more volumes that Seligman bought before his deathand Columbia University purchased from his estate in1942. As an obituary boldly puts it, Seligman believedthat the true university of today is a collection ofbooks. 27 The same writer, the British economist G.Findlay Shirras, underlines the delight Seligman tookin his pamphlets and his insistence that every pamphletbe separately bound, contrary to the eighteenth-centurypractice of binding pamphlets in a series of volumes,and applies to him Adam Smith's dictum that

I am abeau in nothing but my books. 28

Fortunately, Warburg, too, has more legitimate claimsthan just his books to the enduring renown of his name.

27. G. Findlay Shirras, ATribute, in Edwin Robert AndersonSeligman (1861-1939): Addresses delivered at the Memorial Meetingheld on December the thirteenth, 1939 in the Low Memorial Libraryat Columbia University. To which are appended Memorial Tributes toProfessor Seligman (Stamford, Conn.: The Overbrook Press, 1942),p. 79.

28. Ibid., p. 81.


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Edwin Seligman-Aby Warburg Correspondence

IJuly29, 192729To Professor Edwin SeligmanAu soins de Messrs Meyer & CieParis

45 bis Bvd Haussmann

Heartfelt thanks for your note.30 We wish you, your wife, and your daughter avery happy continuation of your trip, and Iwill send you as soon as possible apiece of writing on the position of my Institute to sociological research.

With my kindest regards,Faithfullyyours

29. Carbon copy, Warburg Institute Archive, London. Icould not find the original among theSeligman Papers.30. Not extant.


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IIProf. Dr. A. Warburg31Hamburg, August 17, 1927Heilwigstrasse 114Prof. Edwin SeligmanC/o Banque SeligmanMeyer & Cie45 Bvd Haussmann

Paris

My dear Edwin Seligman,32It is only now, after the last lecture in our long summer series has been

delivered that Ican finally thank you wholeheartedly for your letter,33which I takeas an encouraging symptom of your lively interest, both as a friend and a scholar,for my Institute. In the limited time that Ihad at my disposal, Icould only hint atthe reasons that impel me to dare a second trip to America.

Ibelieve that in the 32 years that have elapsed since my first trip to America,the history of art has developed to the point that itwould be worthwhile, on bothsides, to introduce America to the trend that Ipractice, informed by cultural study(kulturwissenschaftliche Tendenz), and Iexpect from American positivism an

essential impulse to my way of thinking. Attempts have been made to conjoinsociology and art history in individual essays and writings, but no one has yetattempted, inmy opinion, to clearly establish the function of society as a stylisticfactor, starting from the simple philological and historical interpretation of anartistic monument. Let us try in this sense of a new energetic aesthetics 34 tointerpret, for instance, the creation of the figure of Fortuna, as she appears, firstly,

as Fortuna spinning the wheel, secondly, as Fortuna with the lock, and thirdly, asFortuna with the rudder and the sail: each of these mirrors three typical phases of

man's struggle with existence. In the case of Fortuna with the wheel, he is theobject, placed on the wheel as criminals bound to a wheel; in a reversal thatremains to him incomprehensible and incalculable, he reaches from below the topand then sinks down to the bottom. In the case of Fortuna with the lock, who hasfound her re-impression, going back to ancient representations, in the Renaissance

Occasio (cf.Macchiavelli), it isman, now, who tries to grab fate by the lock andtakes possession of the head as if itwere a booty, as an executioner holds up thehead of the beheaded. Between these two, Fortuna with the sail comes to the fore.She, too, harks back to ancient representations, for the goddess of Fortuna carries

31. Seligman Papers, Box 51, Uncataloged Correspondence Received, 1927.32. From Leipzig you will receive a Festschrift f?r Schmarsow, in which Iwrite on p. 130 and

passim on the Italian representations of Fortuna. [Added on the margin in ink, inWarburg's hand.]33. Not extant.34. Quotation marks added in ink, inWarburg's hand.


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Stimuli: AbyWarburg inAmerica again 199

the rudder among the Romans, as well, and she is, as Isis eupleua35 with the fullsail, also the goddess of propitious navigation. But the early Renaissance hastransformed the goddess with the sail, in a very peculiar manner, into the symbolof an active-passive fighter against fate. She stands at the mast, towhich the fullsail is appended, at the center of the ship, lady of the ship but not entirely, since a

man sits at the rudder and steers the course at least in the direction of the diagonalin the parallelogram of the forces. Carried by the elements, and yet capable ofreaching a new goal by steering?one can refer to this coinage as a new energeticfunction of the cerebral man in the era of America's discovery.

Thanks to such an interpretatio of the simplest kind Iwould illustrate the as yetunnoticed meaning of a series of such symbols, drawn from the circle of theancient mythical and historical tradition, as stimuli to the communication ofenergetic self-perception, and would produce the documents thereby necessary inimage and words as stations, so to speak, in the development of the world view ofthe European man. Inorder to show you a positive example of the shape that suchresearch would assume, Ienclose the essay of my long-time friend and colleague,

Alfred Doren, who spoke on Fortuna years ago at my library, and which has sincebeen printed in our series of lectures.

As you can see, what Iwish to present is a straightforward interpretatio moremajorum that does not purport to be anything other than an image-comparingpositivism (ein bildvergleichender Positivismus), which can however supply visualdocuments (Bild-Dokumente)36 to social psychology, which has up to nowoverlooked them, as not unconditionally belonging to the doctrine of society.

With best regards (also from my wife and children) to you, Mrs. and MissSeligman,

FaithfullyyoursAby Warburg37

35. Cf. Wilhelm H. R?scher, Ausf?hrliches Lexikon der griechiscen und r?mischen Mythologie, 6vols. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1884-1937), ad vocem Isis, vol. 2, col. 485.36. Bild added in inkbyWarburg.37. Greetings added in ink, inWarburg's hand.


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IIIOctober 17, 192738

Herrn Professor Dr. A. WarburgHeilwigstrasse 114HamburgMy dearAbie [sic]:

You will remember that at the time of your most interesting lectures [sic] wetalked about the possibility of your sending me a little memorandum, in either

German or English, explaining your ideas as to the sociology of art. Ihave talkedthe matter over with some of my colleagues here, and, of course, Iam not able togive them a very clear idea of what it is all about. Ifyou find the time within thenear future to send me such a memorandum, please remember that it is intendedfor scholars who really know very little about art. You will, therefore, have to keepitvery general and rather elementary.

Ihope that you can do this soon, as we shall have to decide before very long asto whether to include this topic in our Encyclopedia.

Could you, in addition, help me in another matter? Inan announcement ofsome books on philosophy and sociology, which I remember to have seen withinthe last few weeks somewhere, Inoticed three or four books announced onvarious phases of the sociology of music and the sociology of the bildende K?nste.Could you, by any chance, lay your hand on such an announcement and tell meanything about the projected books and the respective authors? Ifyou do nothappen to know anything about them, probably some bookseller could help you. Ihave a dim recollection that Professor Schumpeter was one of the editors of theseries, but Iam not quite sure.

How are you all? Ihave not forgotten your intention to come over and pay us avisit in the Spring, but, of course, Iam not at all sure whether that will be the wisething for you.

With kind regards to your good wife and family, and with affectionate greetingsto Max and Alice, I remain

FaithfullyyoursEdwin R. A. Seligman

38. Carbon copy, Seligman Papers, Box 191, Miscellaneous.


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IVFlorence, November 1, 192739

My dear Edwin Seligman,Since Ihad received no reply to my letter of August 17, Ihad begun to fear that

neither the letter nor the enclosures (a volume of Vortr?ge with the essay by Dorenon Fortuna)40 had reached you through your French bank. From your friendly letterof October 17, I see, with regret, that you have indeed not received my letter,which Ihad of course written, without delay, since so much depends on our sopromising understanding. Ienclose therefore, a copy of the letter of August 17,41as well as the printed matter once again from Hamburg.42

The months that have gone by between your kind visit and my present stay inFlorence have strengthened my resolve to get personally acquainted with

American science. Ican well imagine that for outsiders and for art historians in theusual style it is not easy to see why sociology and art history should live in closestcontact. Especially inAmerica the trend in art history, which takes the descriptionof the individual work of art as its goal and therefore implicitly grants to the ownerthe right to the most personal artistic enjoyment, has just arrived.

Please do not let yourself be shaken by any kind of bonsens from at leastlooking at the contact between sociology and art history as the object of aninevitable recognition. This is precisely what Ihope to achieve in 1928,

notwithstanding all the difficulties Ihave to overcome.Iseize the chance to express something more general on the development of art

history: the synopsis of life and art is no new endeavor, to the contrary: already inthe '60s the French (for instance Lacroix) published histories of civilization that

were very appetizingly presented and have thus shown the way to a cheap kind ofragout cooking (Ragoutk?che), whose demise must be counted as a merit of morerecent art history. Ifan oscillation in the previous direction is now setting in, itdoesso in a very different vein from the preceding one: we now uncompromisinglydemand that the voice that is heard be temporally consonant to the work of art,whether we look for it in poetry and prose or in original documents.

Word and image as a higher unity must be interrogated as spiritual documentsin order to recover the essence of the European man (and eventually of mankind in

general).

39. Seligman Papers, Box 105, Encyclopaedia Sent Correspondence. Beneath the date: {within 8days Hamburg) [added inEnglish in ink, inWarburg's hand].40. and my essay on Sassett?s will [added in ink on the margin, inWarburg's hand].41. Also preserved among the Seligman Papers, Box 191, Miscellaneous.42. The first shipment must have reached Seligman after all: the Avery Architectural & Fine ArtsLibrary at Columbia University holds the volume of the Vortr?ge with Warburg's autograph inscription:To his dear Edwin Seligman, and the date August 19, 1927. To the same library Seligman donated hiscopy of the Festschrift f?r Schmarsow. Neither volume contains any further marking, besides an arrow,clearly inWarburg's hand, pointing to the title of Doren's lecture in the table of contents of theVortr?ge.


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Do not fear that Imay wish to unfold groundbreaking theories in front of a greatcircle inAmerica; Iwill avoid any noisy publicity but present the possibility of anew practice to a small circle of scholars in the humanities. (Iwould be verythankful ifyou could stress this to my brothers, as well, since they seem to fearthat Iwould like to jump into the stream of American life; the opposite is the case:Iwill come as an individual and bring my Archimedean point inmy satchel).

In the lastweeks spent here in Florence, Ihave experienced that the existenceof my method is justified. For the first time since the war (12 and a half years ago) Icould show at the hand of an example, in the Kunsthistorisches Institut, how toturn a museum piece into a speaking document of life through an interpretationinformed by cultural study (kulturwissenschaftliche Interpretation). Going back to

discoveries of more than 30 years ago, Ipresented 8 draperies from Brussels fromthe second half of the sixteenth century as social documents of the spiritual erathat led in France to the night of St. Bartholomew, through a mixed method,combining documents, literature, and images, and did so with such force ofconviction that, to my great satisfaction, Ielicited the most sympathetic consensus.

You will, dear Edwin Seligman, interpret this account not as personalpromotion; nothing is farther from my mind, since Ido not believe at all inpersonal merit and worthiness, 43 nor wish to put poor me44 in the spotlight. Tothe contrary, Iclaim for myself the right, like any Italian match girl, to find a cornerfrom which to sell my wares.

Ifyou will help me inmy struggle for idealenlightenment (Aufkl?rung) ith thesame unmovable resolve you showed my brother Paul,45 Ican at least promise youthat you will not regret it inmy case, either.

With best regards to you, your dear wife and daughter,Your faithful friend,Aby Warburg46

43. Quotation marks added in ink byWarburg. The quote is from Luther.44. In English in the original.45. Allusion to Seligman's role in promoting RaulWarburg's ideas on bank reform, which inspired

the Federal Reserve Act (cf. Ron Chernow, The Warburgs [New York: Random House, 1993], pp. 131137). Seligman himself authored the entry Warburg, Paul Moritz in the last volume of the

Encyclopaedia (1935), pp. 352-353.46. Greetings added in ink by Warburg.


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VDecember 16, 192747

Prof. A. WarburgHeilwigstrasseHamburg 20, GermanyMy dearAbie [sic]:

Iam not quite sure whether Iacknowledged receipt of your letter of two orthree weeks ago. At all events, Iwant to thank you for your very full andinteresting statement.

We are still a little unclear as to how to treat the subject of Art in our proposedencyclopaedia, and Iam trying to get Roger Fry to come over from England to helpus to decide.

So far as your own point of view is concerned, Iam afraid that itwould beuseless to try to do anything with the subject without a great array of illustrations,and Ifear itwill be impracticable to use illustrations in our encyclopaedia. We are,however, still on the fence about it.

As regards your own projected visit?I am inclined to believe that perhaps afterall your brothers are right in advising you not to come. Life is very hectic here,especially in New York, and itmight perhaps prove to be a little too strenuous foryou. Ishall, however, be very glad to talk the matter

over with Hall at an earlyopportunity.With kind regards to you and your good wife, I remain

Faithfullyyours

47. Carbon copy, Seligman Papers, Box 191, Miscellaneous.


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VIHamburg, January 2, 192848

Mr. Edwin SeligmanEncyclopaedia of the Social SciencesFayerweather HallColumbia UniversityNew York

My dear Edwin Seligman,Many thanks for your letter of December 16, and, above all, for the beautiful

two-volume work The Economics of Installment Selling49 which I receivedyesterday.

To my regret, Icannot gauge from your letter whether you have read the essays Isent you, especially the facsimile from the Festchrift for Schmarsow on Sassetti. Ifyou do not have the time to do so, please allow Mrs. Carry to read those fewpages more carefully. Ibelieve that you will then have a clearer image of what mymethod can bring to sociology. We do not propose to address the entire field ofartistic creation, but only some selected cases of applied art, such as the SassettiFortuna case. Since my approach is new, Ishould present itbriefly to you inperson, as we discussed inmy library. But on my actual presence, to my livelyregret, you

seem nolonger

to count, because you have made the health concernsof my brothers entirely your own, without even listening to me. Much as Iappreciate the caring love of my relatives, Imust however note in this case that itiswholly exaggerated, since Iam very well aware of the dangers myself and feel

totally able to face the hectic pace of New York life, and secondly, afterconsultation with my doctor, Dr. Embden,50 see absolutely no reason not to riskthe trip to New York. Ishall return to this issue in due time. 51

Iknow very well what Iwant to accomplish inAmerica without any need to getinto the limelight: first of all, to learn for myself, and, secondly, to present my

method of cultural study (Kulturwissenschaft) in a few places inAmerica (NewYork comes into the picture, on a relative scale, only marginally). Iwill inform mybrothers more in detail on this matter, moreover you do not need to be afraid that Ishall come too quickly. Icould hardly travel before fall 1928 in the best ofcircumstances.

Since you take such a friendly interest inmy personal fate, allow me to informyou that Ihave behind me a very stressful period of study and travel to Italy, during

which Isuccessfully engaged in activities both as lecturer (Ienclose a paperclipping)52 and as member of the board of the Kunsthistorisches Institut Do not

48. Seligman Papers, Box 52, Correspondence Received, 1928.49. New York: Columbia UP, 1927.50. Heinrich Embden (1871-1941), Warburg's personal doctor.51. In English in the original.52. Offprint from Kunstchronik und Kunstliteratur. Beilage zur Zeitschrift f?r bildende Kunst 61

(1927-1928), pp. 97-98.


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forget that, once over sixty, one no longer has the right to take into accountanything but how to make the best for others of the vital force one has left.Therefore, please, let the trip to America be my personal responsibility, which Iassume in all its import.

With best wishes for the New Year and best regards to your wife, your daughterand yourself,

FaithfullyyoursAbyWarburg

Roger Fryis

onlya connoisseur (Kunst-kenner)

53. This last sentence and the signature added in ink inWarburg's hand.


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VilJanuary 19, 192854

Professor Aby WarburgHeilwigstrasse 114Hamburg, GermanyDear Aby:

Many thanks for your letter of January 2nd. In reply Iwould say that Ihaveindeed read with much interest your monograph on Sassetti. It interested me very

much.We have not yet, however, been able to decide exactly how much attention to

give to the matter of Art. Ihad a dinner the other night attended by the mosteminent artist philosophers [sic] in this part of the world, and we made someprogress.

I note what you say about your possible visit to the United States. Far be it fromme to interfere in any way with what you may finally decide to do. Itgoes withoutsaying that we shall give you a hearty welcome ifyou do come.

With kind regardsFaithfullyyours

54. Carbon copy, Seligman Papers, Box 52, Uncataloged Correspondence Received, 1928.

Documents

Aby Warburg in America Again. With an Edition of His Unpublished Correspondence With Edwin R. a. Seligman %281927-1928%29