Edgar Wind
Art and Embodiment
©2024
Edited Collection
XXIV,
408 Pages
Series:
Cultural Memories, Volume 20
Summary
«A completely fascinating volume. Essential reading on the development of art and cultural history in the twentieth century. It confirms Edgar Wind as one of the master thinkers in both domains. Difficult, mercurial and always original, his work has never ceased to be stimulating, as this book so vividly shows. No one who heard his lectures as the first Professor of Art History at Oxford, or his 1960 Reith lectures entitled Art and Anarchy has ever forgotten the richness of their content or the elegance with which he delivered them. His brilliance and his complicated character could not emerge more clearly than in this outstanding series of essays – one as compelling as the other. It could hardly be otherwise. This is a team of both younger and more senior scholars headed by Jaynie Anderson (more responsible than any for the revival of Wind’s reputation), that includes Oswyn Murray (who knew him well), and Elizabeth Sears (who knows the complex cast of characters involved in the history of the great institute founded by Aby Warburg in Hamburg better than anyone else). Here are rich accounts of Wind’s challenges to Warburg’s colleagues and protegés such as Ernst Cassirer, Fritz Saxl, Erwin Panofsky and many others, as well as his fundamental role in the transfer of the Institute to London and the consequences of his unfortunate separation from it.»
(David Freedberg, Pierre Matisse Professor Emeritus of the History of Art, Columbia University)
«This close attention to Edgar Wind is long overdue. The vast range of interests and ideas of the German-trained mainstay of art history in England at last find proper tribute and assessment in this volume. Not only are his own close studies of cultural symbols examined anew, but his dialogues with mentors are also assessed. This collection of scholarly essays provides a much-needed suggestion of Wind’s own contributions and should spark a vital return to his legacy.»
(Larry Silver, Farquhar Professor of Art History, Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania)
Edgar Wind (1900–1971) was a cosmopolitan scholar who made important contributions to many disciplines, including philosophy, Renaissance art history and modern art criticism.
This book considers a crucial question: to understand the work of an art historian, how important is it to know their life story? In the case of Edgar Wind, biography and scholarly endeavour are intimately connected. His intellectual exchanges with leading art historians, philosophers and artists of his day were essential for his research. Moreover, his wife, Margaret Wind, was determined to establish an Edgar Wind Archive after his death.
This book is the first comprehensive study in English of Wind’s intellectual achievements.
Open Access Chapter 4 is available <html>
<a href="https://supplementaryresources.blob.core.windows.net/4330868-anderson/9781800799523_CH_101-124_4.pdf"_blank"; rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>
</html>
Open Access Chapter 7 is available <html>
<a href="https://supplementaryresources.blob.core.windows.net/4330868-anderson/9781800799523_CH_187-220_7.pdf"_blank"; rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>
</html>
(David Freedberg, Pierre Matisse Professor Emeritus of the History of Art, Columbia University)
«This close attention to Edgar Wind is long overdue. The vast range of interests and ideas of the German-trained mainstay of art history in England at last find proper tribute and assessment in this volume. Not only are his own close studies of cultural symbols examined anew, but his dialogues with mentors are also assessed. This collection of scholarly essays provides a much-needed suggestion of Wind’s own contributions and should spark a vital return to his legacy.»
(Larry Silver, Farquhar Professor of Art History, Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania)
Edgar Wind (1900–1971) was a cosmopolitan scholar who made important contributions to many disciplines, including philosophy, Renaissance art history and modern art criticism.
This book considers a crucial question: to understand the work of an art historian, how important is it to know their life story? In the case of Edgar Wind, biography and scholarly endeavour are intimately connected. His intellectual exchanges with leading art historians, philosophers and artists of his day were essential for his research. Moreover, his wife, Margaret Wind, was determined to establish an Edgar Wind Archive after his death.
This book is the first comprehensive study in English of Wind’s intellectual achievements.
Open Access Chapter 4 is available <html>
<a href="https://supplementaryresources.blob.core.windows.net/4330868-anderson/9781800799523_CH_101-124_4.pdf"_blank"; rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>
</html>
Open Access Chapter 7 is available <html>
<a href="https://supplementaryresources.blob.core.windows.net/4330868-anderson/9781800799523_CH_187-220_7.pdf"_blank"; rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>
</html>
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- List of Archival Sources Cited and Abbreviations Used (Fabio Tononi, Jaynie Anderson and Bernardino Branca)
- Introduction
- Part I Intellectual Formation
- 1 Edgar Wind: A Mind Naturalized in Antiquity (Pablo Schneider)
- 2 Aby Warburg and Edgar Wind on the Biology of Images: Empathy, Collective Memory and the Engram (Fabio Tononi)
- 3 On Details and Different Ways of Viewing Raphael: Edgar Wind and Heinrich Wölfflin (Giovanna Targia)
- 4 Philosophy of Culture: Naturalistic or Transcendental? A Dialogue between Edgar Wind and Ernst Cassirer (Tullio Viola)
- Part II The Interpretation of Works of Art
- 5 ‘Chaos Reduced to Cosmos’: Reconstructing Edgar Wind’s Interpretation of Dürer’s Melencolia I (Franz Engel)
- 6 Symbol, Polarity and Embodiment: The Composite Portrait in Aby Warburg and Edgar Wind (Bernhard Buschendorf)
- 7 Edgar Wind: Metaphysics Embodied in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Ceiling (Bernardino Branca)
- 8 A Crucial Experiment: An Historical Interpretation of Edgar Wind’s ‘Hume and the Heroic Portrait’ (C. Oliver O’Donnell)
- 9 ‘That Magnificent Sense of Disproportion with the Absolute’: On Edgar Wind’s Critique of (Humourless) Modern Art (Ianick Takaes de Oliveira)
- Part III Career as Émigré Scholar and Public Intellectual
- 10 Edgar Wind and the Saving of the Warburg Institute (Oswyn Murray)
- 11 Edgar Wind and the ‘Encyclopaedic Imagination’ (Elizabeth Sears)
- 12 Circular Arguments: Edgar Wind at Chicago, 1942–1944 (Ben Thomas)
- 13 Understanding Excessive Brevity: The Critical Reception of Edgar Wind’s Art and Anarchy (Jaynie Anderson)
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Jonathan Blower for translating the chapter by Pablo Schneider; Derek Clements-Croome for his invaluable advice; Henry Hardy for his advice on Isaiah Berlin’s papers; Colin Harrison and Ben Thomas, Literary Executors of the Estate of Edgar Wind, for permission to quote from Wind’s published and unpublished materials held at the Edgar Wind Archive; Martin Kauffmann, Head of Early and Rare Collections and Tolkien Curator of Medieval Manuscripts, Bodleian Libraries, for his inestimable advice concerning the Edgar Wind Archive; Katia Pizzi, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute of London, for hosting the conference ‘Edgar Wind: Art and Embodiment’ at the Italian Cultural Institute, where some of the texts included in this book were first presented; Ben Thomas again for his role in co-organizing that conference; Paul Taylor, Curator of the Photographic Collection of the Warburg Institute, for his help with some of the illustrations; Claudia Wedepohl, Archivist of the Warburg Archive at the Warburg Institute, for assistance with some aspects of the works of Aby Warburg; Belinda Nemec for her work as copyeditor of this book; and finally Laurel Plapp, Senior Acquisitions Editor at Peter Lang, for her constant guidance.
Details
- Pages
- XXIV, 408
- Publication Year
- 2024
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781800799530
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781800799547
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9781800799523
- DOI
- 10.3726/b19978
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2024 (January)
- Keywords
- History of art Art and symbolism Edgar Wind
- Published
- Oxford, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, New York, 2024. XXIV, 408 pp., 49 fig. col., 30 fig. b/w.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG
