Aby Warburg’s and Fritz Saxl’s assessment of the ‘Wiener Schule’

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to locate both scholars’ views in the discussion of the direction and scope of the ‘Wiener Schule’. Warburg, who corresponded with members of the ‘Wiener Schule’, and Saxl, who was trained by its teachers, whilst reading the important books of its members, never wanted to be drawn into their research agenda. Warburg was clear that he wanted to pursue a different form of ‘Kulturwissenschaft’, all but untranslatable into English, possibly approaching a term like cultural ‘science’. Saxl, whilst sympathetic to individual proponents of the ‘Wiener Schule’, realized that its analysis of artistic production would not be shared by scholars working in the KBW and/or the newly established university in Hamburg. The result was friendly coexistence in equidistance.