Description:
Originally published in French in 2002, examines the life and work of art historian Aby Warburg. Demonstrates the complexity and importance of Warburg's ideas, addressing broader questions regarding art historians' conceptions of time, memory, symbols, and the relationship between art and the rational and irrational forces of the psyche.
Brief description: Georges Didi-Huberman is on the faculty of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. His books in English include Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figuration; Invention of Hysteria: Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpêtrière; and Confronting Images: Questioning the Ends of a Certain History of Art, the last also published by Penn State University Press.
Review Quotes:
"Didi-Huberman argues that Warburg offers offers us a 'psycho-history' of culture: a model of historical understanding as a response to images possessed of vital power and emotional force. This book fills the need for a better understanding of Warburg's contribution to the discipline of art history, and will draw the attention of anyone who teaches its history and methods as well as that of students who seek to understand the intellectual life of their chosen field of study."
--Keith Moxey, author of Visual Time: The Image in History