Animazione del presente, immedesimazione nel passato. Warburg e l’empatia

Animation of the present, identification with the past. Warburg and empathy In my essay I will focus on the role played by the notion of empathy (Einfühlung) in Aby Warburg’s image theory. After a brief overview of the genealogy of the notion in the ancient doctrines of poetry and drama and its terminological definition in early German Romanticism, I will shortly present Warburg direct sources regarding this issue (Robert and Friedrich T. Vischer, Heinrich Wölfflin, Adolf von Hildebrand, August Schmarsow), and subsequently analyse the two main directions taken by Warburg in employing the notion: empathy towards objects (i.e. animation of inert things such as static images) and empathy towards subjects (i.e. historical identification of the Renaissance artists with the artists of Antiquity). Finally I will try to suggest a third possible articulation of Einfühlung, that is a diegetic implication emerging from the empathic identification of the observer with the character represented in the image. This will allow me to discuss Warburg’s lifelong confrontation with Lessing’s Laokoon, and to explore the crucial relationship connecting representation, imagination and narration.