Twelfth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

My paper establishes a dialogue between the philosophy of the image and the history of art around the theoretical problems raised by the concept of style. My study consists of showing that the anthropological approach of Aby Warburg (1866-1929) on the change of style in the pictorial arts, conceived as the result of a dynamic confrontation of forces deployed historically, in particular, in the historical creation, migration, reception, forgetting, and restitution of certain pictorial motifs (pathos formulas), allows us to understand essential aspects of the ways in which images, in general, create meaning. I hope to defend that the Warburgian approach overcomes the limitations that arise from the semiotic and perceptualist approaches typical of some more recent theories of the image.