Through a comparative study of unpublished notes, lectures and seven panels from Aby Warburg's Mnemosyne Atlas, the author has attempted a reconstruction of the sense of Warburg’s latest studies on the migration of the Pathosformeln from Southern to Northern Europe, and on their weakening and reactivation processes in the context of seventeenth century Holland. One of the main leading elements in Warburg’s study is that of theatre conceived both as printed text, i.e. as physical vector capable of migrating pathos formulas, and as the site of the Shakespearian revolution that had introduced the concept of suspension, i.e. the void between impulse and action. Rembrandt, a careful observer of his own time, managed to reactivate Ovid’s mythological tales and Tacitus’s chronicles. He did so by including into his paintings elements that, like Shakespeare’s theatre, had revolutionised the art of his own time, thus breaking the long chain of minor fifteenth century Italian works portraying the same subjects definable as mere copies of the same models devoid of any originality. Although these works are considered as models of the seventeenth century Dutch “art officiel”. Rembrandt’s Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis marks a revolutionary break from those models. This work distinguishes itself from other contemporary thanks to Rembrandt’s formal and theological grafting of Leonardo’s Last Supper, as well as to his appliance of the Shakespearean “dramaturgy of suspension”, and to the painter’s study of Tacitus. This painting is defined by Warburg as “the astonishing event of an organically successful transformation of the heritage of Antiquity”.
Drammaturgia dell’azione sospesa. Trasformazioni della carica gestuale e riattivazione dell’Antico nelle Tavole su Rembrandt del Mnemosyne Atlas
Lucamatteo Rossi
2023-01-01
Abstract
Through a comparative study of unpublished notes, lectures and seven panels from Aby Warburg's Mnemosyne Atlas, the author has attempted a reconstruction of the sense of Warburg’s latest studies on the migration of the Pathosformeln from Southern to Northern Europe, and on their weakening and reactivation processes in the context of seventeenth century Holland. One of the main leading elements in Warburg’s study is that of theatre conceived both as printed text, i.e. as physical vector capable of migrating pathos formulas, and as the site of the Shakespearian revolution that had introduced the concept of suspension, i.e. the void between impulse and action. Rembrandt, a careful observer of his own time, managed to reactivate Ovid’s mythological tales and Tacitus’s chronicles. He did so by including into his paintings elements that, like Shakespeare’s theatre, had revolutionised the art of his own time, thus breaking the long chain of minor fifteenth century Italian works portraying the same subjects definable as mere copies of the same models devoid of any originality. Although these works are considered as models of the seventeenth century Dutch “art officiel”. Rembrandt’s Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis marks a revolutionary break from those models. This work distinguishes itself from other contemporary thanks to Rembrandt’s formal and theological grafting of Leonardo’s Last Supper, as well as to his appliance of the Shakespearean “dramaturgy of suspension”, and to the painter’s study of Tacitus. This painting is defined by Warburg as “the astonishing event of an organically successful transformation of the heritage of Antiquity”.
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