The Fortune of Gertrud Bing, (1892-1964): A Fragmented Memoir of a Phantomlike Muse (Studies in Iconology) 9789042941915, 9789042941922, 904294191X

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STUDIE S IN ICO N O LO GY 

The Fortune of Gertrud Bing (1892-1964) A Fragmented Memoir of a Phantomlike Muse Laura Tack

P EE T ER S

THE FORTUNE OF GERTRUD BING

THE FORTUNE OF GERTRUD BING (1892-1964) A Fragmented Memoir of a Phantomlike Muse

LAURA TACK

PEETERS LEUVEN–PARIS–BRISTOL, CT 2020

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization.

ISBN 978-90-429-4191-5 eISBN 978-90-429-4192-2 D/2020/0602/54 © 2020 – Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium)

Das Pergament, iſt das der heil’ge Bronnen, Woraus ein Trunk den Durſt auf ewig ſtillt? Erquickung haſt du nicht gewonnen, Wenn ſie dir nicht aus eigner Seele quillt. The motto of Gertrud Bing’s ex libris from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust. Ein Fragment, Leipzig, 1790, p. 15.

For Stijn Demaré

Io mi lascio portare alla Fortuna sperando alfin daver buona ventura. The motto of a Florentine impresa amorosa from 1466, depicting the two newlyweds on Fortune’s ship.

Contents INTRODUCTION ......................

XI

I. OF MUSES AND PHANTOMS. FRAGMENTED TRACES OF MEMORY .



1.1. THE EARLY YEARS (1892-1922). YOUTH, EDUCATION AND FIRST INTELLECTUAL TRAINING ...............



1.2. THE TRINITY WARBURG – SAXL – BING (1922-1929) ..... 1.2.1. Eine zwiefach gegabelte Wünschelrute. Gertrud Bing and Aby Warburg (1866-1929) ........... 1.2.2. An Intellectual Parenthood. Gertrud Bing and Fritz Saxl (1890-1948) ..................

  

1.3. GERTRUD BING AS JEWISH ART HISTORIAN IM EXIL ..... 1.3.1. Tausendmahl mehr Deutscher als Jude. Gertrud Bing on Jewish Assimilation .............. 1.3.2. A Twist of Fate. Gertrud Bing Ponders her Jewish Identity 1.3.3. Steering One’s Own Course. Gertrud Bing and the Move of the K.B.W. to Londen .............. 1.3.4. Sehnsucht for the Heimat. Gertrud Bing after WW II ..



1.4. A GENDER PERSPECTIVE ON THE LIFE OF GERTRUD BING .. 1.4.1. Ich diene. A Life in the Shadow? .......... 1.4.2. Der Typus der weltzugewandten Nonne. Aby Warburg on Women ................... 1.4.3. Einer der schönsten Menschentypen, den ich kenne. Bing’s Ideal of the Working Woman .........

 

1.5. FROM PHANTOM TO MUSE. CONCLUDING REMARKS .....



II. TRUTH AND THE CAPRICIOUSNESS OF FORTUNE ........



2.1. OVERWHELMED BY FATE. ON BLIND PASSION, RATIONALITY AND MYSTICISM ...................



   

 

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contents

2.2. DIE GENESE DES IDEALRAUMS. A COSMIC BREAKTHROUGH...



2.3. FORTUNA AND THE EXISTENTIAL STRUGGLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL



2.4. VERITAS OR FORTUNA IN THE THEATRE OF TIME ......



CONCLUSION

......................



Illustrations ......................  Bibliography ......................  Index Nominum ......................  Colophon ...................... 

I Introduction

 Leicht ist’s, folgen dem Wagen, Den Fortuna führt, Wie der gemächliche Troß Auf gebesserten Wegen Hinter des Fürsten Einzug. Aber abseits, wer ist’s? Ins Gebüsch verliert sich sein Pfad, Hinter ihm schlagen Die Sträuche zusammen, Das Gras steht wieder auf, Die Öde verschlingt ihn.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Harzreise im Winter, 1777.

W

When Gertrud Bing was appointed as Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition at the University of London in 1955, she only had a few publications to her name. This may come as a surprise by today’s standards, yet Gertrud Bing is one of the most important links in the network around Aby M. Warburg (1866-1929). Who was Gertrud Bing and what was her personal contribution to Warburg’s scientific project? The answers to these research questions need to be sought in unusual places. It is perhaps not in her small number of publications, but in Bing’s many quiet achievements – quiet at first glance – that one will discover the most about who Gertrud Bing was, and what she meant to the Warburg school. Bettina Götz calls in this respect for a feminist Spurensuche 1 for the lost signs of Bing’s presence. Gender theory seems to have largely abandoned the path of victimisation in recent decades, and is therefore careful not to present women as passive victims of an oppressive patriarchal society. Instead, emphasis is placed on “female agency” and “on the continuous destabilizing pressure that women’s agency has exerted upon culture: women’s efforts to resist masculinist cultural hegemony produced counterefforts to absorb, counteract, and appropriate their resistances”.2 In line with this point of view, this essay on Gertrud Bing is by no means intended as the martyrology of a woman who was relegated to the so-called ‘inferior’ spheres of the academic world. This text rather reports on a quest to discover how Gertrud Bing took up her personal agency – in her own distinctive way. This deliberate choice for a female perspective can also help clarify Warburg’s own research interests. With Warburg’s fascination for the nymph, a picturing of ‘the feminine’ enters into the centre of his thinking. However, Warburg almost never voiced opinions about the role of gender in the structure of society.3 Nor does it seem that he actually admitted women to his intellectual universe. Gertrud Bing, it turns out, was the rare exception. What does this say about

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Warburg’s attitude towards women? And how did Bing influence his view on women? By asking these questions, I merely want to illustrate the relevance of this contribution – these questions will not make up the heart of my presentation. My main goal is to map the agency of Gertrud Bing in this intellectual universe. I do this in the way that Gertrud Bing herself would have probably preferred. When she planned to write the biography of Aby Warburg’s life and work, she not only intended to cover his scientific publications, but also to consider “the enormous amount of Warburg’s correspondence with scholars all over the world”.4 By starting from the letters, she confirmed, she would be in the position to make Warburg’s unique voice resonate again: Ich stelle mich die Biographie von Professor A.M. Warburg in der Form von ‘Life and Letters’ vor. Das ist eine Form die in England (…) geradezu klassisch geworden ist. [D]iese Form [hat] eine Unmittelbarkeit, die sonst Kaum zu erreichen ist. Dadurch dass man den Menschen selbst zu Worte kommen lässt, erscheinen seine Entwicklung, seine Arbeit, seine Stillung zu seiner Umgebung und seiner Zeit unverfälscht so wie sie ihm und andern damals erschienen sind.5

According to Bing, then, the ideal biography of Warburg ought to merge the personal with the intellectual. It should be “a book consisting of two parts: a biography supported by Wbgs letters and an analysis of his thought”.6 In Bing’s person, the two aspects were united as well. The many letters she wrote – which are kept at the Warburg Institute Archive to this day – show that she was a gifted letter-writer, with an often impassioned, highly literary style and with a keen eye for interpersonal interaction and concrete details. In addition, she produced a modest scientific oeuvre, which is equally worthy of attention. The underlying aim of this essay, therefore, is to interweave the overview of Bing’s intellectual achievements (part II) with the personal and the anecdotal (part I) that pulsates under her academic language, revealing in this way, as Gertrud Bing herself cleverly remarked in one of the first letters she wrote to Aby Warburg: Jede menschliche Erweiterung kommt doch auch der Arbeit zu gut.7 What one experiences as a human being will also find its way, in one way or another, into the academic oeuvre one leaves behind. As will become clear, this is not only the case for Aby Warburg, but also for Gertrud Bing.

introduction

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I start with a biographical sketch in the first part, in which I, as a feminist Spurensucher, try to form an image of the life of Gertrud Bing (part I). This emphasis on Bing’s life is necessary to understand her work, especially since it points our attention to what she accomplished in the quiet moments between the publications that make up her small oeuvre. In the second part, I will then examine Bing’s achievements in light of the overarching theme of Fortuna. I deliberately choose to address a subject that fascinated Bing herself, and that is also one of the central research themes of the Warburg school (part II).

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Die genaue Erforschung des Anteils von Gertrud Bing an der Arbeit Warburgs sowie an der Fortentwicklung und Etablierung der von ihm begründeten kulturwissenschaftlichen Methode, ihrer sogenannten stillen Tätigkeit, wäre eine Aufgabe für feministische Spurensuche. Solche Spuren finden sich z. B. in unzähligen Danksagungen in Vorworten und Fußnoten. Bettina Götz, Gertrud Bing Verein zur Förderung von Frauenforschung in Kunst-und Kulturwissenschaften e.V., in Aby Warburg. Akten des internationalen Symposions Hamburg 1990, eds. Horst Bredekamp, Michael Diers & Charlotte Schoell-Glass, (Schriften des Warburg-Archivs im Kunstgeschichtlichen Seminar der Universität Hamburg, 1), Weinheim, 1991, p. 299-304, p. 301. 2 Norma Broude & Mary D. Garrard, Introduction. Reclaiming Female Agency, 1

in Reclaiming Female Agency. Feminist Art History after Postmodernism, eds. Norma Broude & Mary D. Garrard, Berkeley, CA-Los Angeles, CA-Londen, 2005, p. 1-25, p. 3. 3 Götz, Gertrud Bing Verein, o.c., p. 303. 4 WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1, envelope 2. Draft application to the Bollinger Foundation for a grant. 5 WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1, envelope 2. Draft of letter to Eric Warburg 2 December 1960. 6 WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1, envelope 2. Draft application to the Bollinger Foundation for a grant. 7 WIA, GC, G. Bing to A. Warburg, 14 June 1924.

I. Of Muses and Phantoms. Fragmented Traces of Memory

 She knew how to interpret any hint and any jotting of a name or of a notion, and how to fill in any gap Warburg himself had indicated. Having worked closely with the ageing scholar whom she accompanied on his last journey to Italy and who would sometimes dictate his first drafts to her, she had entered into his ideas to the point of identification.

E. H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, 1970, p. 1-2.

Fig. 1. Portrait of Gertrud Bing. London, The Warburg Institute Archive

S

Sie stand anderen zur Seite und wußte sie zu inspirieren.8 It is clear that Ernst Gombrich saw Gertrud Bing as the muse in the circle of scientists around Aby Warburg (fig. 1). However, a retrospective of the life of this woman-turned-muse is a good example of how time moves in a merciless stream of oblivion. Drawing up a biographical sketch of Bing’s life is not easy. There are the dates associated with the important moments, turning points and upheavals in her life (see the attached table). These are the factual beacons that stand out clearly in the course of her life, and are clearly discernible to anyone who wants to undertake a biography of Gertrud Bing. However, what flows between these beacons – the thoughts, the feelings and the whole existential outlook of the person in question – seems to elude us. So, where to start? The logical first step seems to call on those who knew Gertrud Bing during her life, and to investigate how her direct colleagues and friends remembered her. This in itself is an interesting exercise. Warburgians are known for their caution with the word ‘memory’ (Greek mnèmè, mnèmosynè), and for being even more cautious with the word ‘forgetting’. The various In memoriams 9 published after Bing’s death, at first glance, paint a clear picture of her life. One might ask, however, to what extent these texts reflect the mindsets of the writers instead of the true identity of the honouree. In addition, many of Bing’s friends realised after her death how little they knew Gertrud. When Michael Baxandall looked back on his time as an assistant at The Warburg Institute, he wrote the following: “When Bing died it was a common experience among her friends to realize suddenly that, close to her as they felt, they knew very little about her.”10

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YOUTH AND EDUCATION 7 June 1892 1912

1913 1913-1914 1916 1916-1918 1919 1920 4 June 1921

Born in Hamburg as the daughter of Moritz Bing (1839-1898) and Emma Jonas (1855-1912) Wissenschaftliche Abschlussung at the Oberlyzeum (Lehrerinnenseminar) der Unterrichtsanstalten des Klosters St. Johannis, Hamburg Lehramtsprüfung für höhere Mädchenschulen Teacher at a private school Abitur at the Heinrich-Hertz-Realgymnasium, Hamburg Studies Philosophy, Literature and Psychology in Munich. Instructed in philosophy by Prof. Dr. Geiger and Prof. Dr. Pfänder Substitute teacher (due to Kriegsvertretung) at the KnabenOberrealschule Eimsbüttel, Hamburg Studies Philosophy, Literature and Psychology in Hamburg, at the newly established University of Hamburg (°1 April 1919) Oral examination to obtain doctoral degree at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Hamburg. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Petsch, Co-supervisor: Prof. Dr. Cassirer.

APPOINTMENT TO THE K.B.W. AND PERSONAL ASSISTANT OF ABY WARBURG 1922 1927 1928-1929

Appointment as librarian Assistant-director of the library and assistant of Aby Warburg Journey to Italy with Aby Warburg

EMIGRATION TO LONDON 1933 1933-1944 1946 1944-1955 1955-1959

The K.B.W. moves to London Assistant-director of the K.B.W. British citizenship Assistant-director of The Warburg Institute, University of London Director of The Warburg Institute and Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition, University of London

FINAL YEARS 1959 2 June 1964 3 July 1964

Professor Emerita Hospitalisation Death

of muses and phantoms

5

Moreover, the fact that many of her close colleagues, collaborators and friends ultimately knew little about Bing’s personal life is not only due to their forgetfulness or lack of attention. Gertrud Bing herself did not make it easy for her future biographers. After her death, presumably at her request, all personal documents were destroyed.11 This act seems incomprehensible, but it is in any case in keeping with a character trait that emerges in various biographical notes about Bing: she had a tendency to forget herself. Bing’s enormous dedication to the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg (K.B.W.) meant that she almost completely buried herself in her work at the institute, and minimised her contribution to its success.12 This reserved, dutiful and modest attitude in regard to the work of her teacher Aby Warburg also characterises her at a later age, when, at the death of Henri Frankfort, and after years of loyal service, she eventually became the director of The Warburg Institute in 1955. In a letter to his cousin, Eric M. Warburg, who emigrated to America, she wrote the following about her appointment: It is a tribute to your uncle that I should have been chosen to carry on his work into another phase, and to see the Institute into its new, bigger home on the main University site, because I am still in the direct line of descent from him.13

Bing considered her appointment an honour, not for herself, but for her mentor. Her modesty and affection for Warburg’s project did her credit, and was also much appreciated by her friends and colleagues. A biographer on the lookout for sensational autobiographical details has little to work with here, and is left reaching for something more substantial. One might begin to wonder whether, in the case of Gertrud Bing, it is even possible to see through the mists of the Lethe to discern an image of Bing on the other side that, beyond the facts, provides an insight into Bing’s inner life. In view of the fact that this contribution seeks to trace Gertrud Bing’s intellectual mindset, I want to do just that: to retrieve Bing’s inner motives from oblivion, in order to find in them a basis for her own scientific project. As an antidote to the Lethe, I hope to find Mnemosyne, the mother of the muses and the personification of memory, and will try to pull Gertrud Bing’s life out of the river of oblivion, into the light of recollection and memory.

1.1. The Early Years (1892-1922). Youth, Education and First Intellectual Training Although one knows relatively little about Bing’s life, even less is known about the first thirty years of her biography. And yet this is the only period about which one can let Bing herself speak as autobiographer. In the Lebenslauf, which she attached to her dissertation14, she provided a clear, but relatively concise overview of the most important milestones in her young life (see also the above table). Again, one has to read between the lines to touch upon the life that lies underneath these factual data. This is how she begins her own biography: Ich, Gertrud Bing, wurde am 7. Juni 1892 als Tochter des verstorbene Kaufmannes Moritz Bing und seiner ebenfalls verstorbene Frau Emma Bing, geb. Jonas zu Hamburg geboren.15 The attentive reader notices the tragedy that lies behind this formal expression. At the tender age of 28, Bing had already lost both her parents. It is also striking that she did not achieve her Abitur – which gave her access to the university – before 1916, at the relatively late age of 24. Even more striking, however, is the fact that barely five years after achieving her Abitur – in 1921 – she already obtained her doctoral degree at the University of Hamburg, with a thesis entitled Der Begriff des Notwendigen bei Lessing. Ein Beitrag zum geistesgeschichtlichen Problem Leibniz-Lessing. The choice of her dissertation topic was typical of her personality, which drove her to assert herself as an individual that took responsibility for the dayto-day events that happened to her, and the needs she observed in her environment and the surrounding world.16 For this reason, she could perhaps be best described as a moral perfectionist, who, moreover, combined her ethical sense with a strong aesthetic sensitivity. It is perhaps this character trait that her colleagues and assistants in London noticed years later as well. “A continuous moral energy was one of the sources of her strength,” reported Donald James Gordon. “She was recalling you to the concreteness of the moment: to your freedom (and your duty) to decide.”17

1.2. The Trinity Warburg – Saxl – Bing (1922-1929) In 1922, the thirty-year-old Bing was recruited by the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg, where Fritz Saxl (1890-1948) had been leading the library in Warburg’s absence for a number of years.18 Saxl, who was overwhelmed by the obligations connected to the day-to-day operation of the library, asked Warburg for additional staff members, in a letter dated 23 March 1922.19 At the suggestion of Ernst Cassirer, Gertrud Bing was recruited later that year.20 She soon became Saxl’s closest associate. We know that she was sent to Leipzig in the summer of 1923 to study the library activities of the Institut für Kultur- und Universalgeschichte.21 The result of Saxls and Bing’s collaboration was impressive. When Warburg returned to Hamburg in 1924, he was deeply grateful to the both of them for the progress they had made. Thus he writes in a letter to Ludwig Binswanger: Das Gedächtnis stellte sich für wissenschaftliche Dinge in relativ sehr kurzer Zeit in verblüffender alter ‘Verbissenheit’ wieder her, besonders als ich nach wenigen Tagen erkannte, mit welcher wirklich erschütternden Liebe und Treue Saxl und Fräulein Bing die Bibliothek weiter ausgebaut hatten.22

Warburg, Saxl, and Bing. In jest, they are also called la seconda Trinità del Warburg.23 However, this is more than just a joke; the three of them were really well matched. A note from Warburg on 3 January 1926 shows that, in addition to himself, he counted both Saxl and Bing as the members of the library’s directorial staff: Angesichts des bevorstehenden Einzuges in das eigene Haus will sich die bisherige und jetzige Leitung darüber klar werden (Prof. Warburg, Dr. Saxl, Frln. Dr. Bing) wie die Organisation des Betriebes sinngemäßer gestaltet werden kann. Da sich die drei Kräfte überpersönlich in der Gestaltung der K.B.W. zusammengefunden haben und ihr jenseits von Empfindlichkeiten weiter gedeihlich zusammenzuwirken entschlossen sind, soll hier schonungslos aber rein sachlich kritisiert werden.24

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From 1926 onwards, the library’s Tagebuch functioned as the joint consultative body of the Warburg Trinity.25 Originally the Tagebuch was intended to be a place of trialogue, but at the end of 1926 its progress became cumbersome because of the increasing tension between the two men in the trinity.26 One of the consequences of this tension was that the trialogue envisaged in the Tagebuch de facto took the form of a dialogue between Warburg and Bing. Nevertheless, Bing remained the link between Warburg and Saxl.

1.2.1. Eine zwiefach gegabelte Wünschelrute. Gertrud Bing and Aby Warburg (1866-1929) Gertrud Bing had already been working in the library for two years, when she finally met Aby Warburg in 1924, upon his return from the sanatorium in Kreuzlingen (fig. 2). They got along well, both on a personal and an intellectual level. From 1927 onwards, Bing became Warburg’s personal assistant in addition to being part of the library staff.27 She had the rare ability to understand Warburg’s ideas and projects von innen heraus.28

Fig. 2. Aby Warburg, ca. 1925. From: E.H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, 1986 (1970)

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Her intellectual affinity with Warburg resulted in a productive exchange between the two.29 Warburg saw Bing as his connection with a new, upcoming generation. For example, on 22 July 1929 he wrote to his brother Max that Bing was for him die Brücke (…) über die ich nicht ohne Erschütterung die Geistesverfassung der nächsten Generation kennenlernte.30 In addition, it is important to keep in mind that Bing’s philosophical education may have constituted an addition to Warburg’s project.31 Bing’s assistance probably went beyond the purely intellectual aspect. She also provided the necessary psychological support. She offered a clear and rational counterbalance to the irrational forces that held Warburg in their grip. Gertrud Bing was the clear mind that pacified Warburg’s restless soul.32 Momigliano speaks figuratively about the exorcising of demons.33 Bing maintained a certain critical distance from this impenetrable demonic phenomenon. “Preoccupation with the irrational worried her,” Gordon writes.34 Carlo Ginzburg remembers how his teacher Delio “Cantimori once referred to the Warburgians as ‘highly rational salamanders,’ able to pass through fire without burning themselves. But Warburg himself got burned”.35 Bing’s lucid mind was, in a way, able to alleviate some of Warburg’s confusion. This is particularly evident during the trip to Italy, which he made with Bing in 1928-1929. The trip can be regarded as the culmination of their collaboration. Warburg wanted to introduce Bing to Italy36 and its visual culture37, which she experienced there for the first time in all its intensity38 (fig. 3). One can ask why Bing was chosen to accompany Warburg on what would be his last trip to Italy. Perhaps he wanted to pass on the torch and train the next generation. His disappointment in Saxl, which he initially considered to be his successor, probably led him to put his hopes in Bing.39 Secondly, Warburg chose to be accompanied by someone who was on the same wavelength and understood his research questions.40 In addition to their shared scientific sensibilities, Warburg also appreciated das unbedingte Vertrauen und den liebevollen Respekt, den mir Bingia einflößt.41 It is above all the intellectual affinity with Bing that became the subject of Warburg’s entries in the Tagebuch of the journey. On 17 May 1929, after their visit to the Mithraeum in Capua, Warburg wrote: Gertrud Bing und ich funktionieren – rückblickend – wie eine zwiefach gegabelte Wünschelrute.42

of muses and phantoms

Fig 3. Gertrud Bing at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, 1927. London, The Warburg Institute Archive

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Fig. 4. Gertrud Bing and Aby Warburg in Orvieto, 14 March 1929. London, The Warburg Institute Archive

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The intention of the Italian journey was mainly to guide Warburg and Bing in their thinking process (fig. 4). Three projects43 were in the pipeline: the preparation of Warburg’s lecture on 19 January 1929 at the Hertziana in Rome44, an exploration of the work of Giordano Bruno45, and the compilation of the Bilderatlas Mnemosyne46. One might wonder whether the intellectual affection between Warburg and Bing flowed over to the personal level at some point. Emily Levine suggests the possibility of a “romantic relationship” between the two.47 She bases this assumption on the memoirs of Carl Georg Heise48 and a number of letters49. Marie-Anne Lescourret also seems to point in this direction with her discussion of le cas Bing.50 At any rate, Warburg was charmed by Bing’s boundless respect for him. According to Lescourret, this could have been the driving force behind a more personal bond between the two51, although one has to be careful not to read too much between the lines. In any case, it is clear that Bing did not always have an easy time with Warburg, as shown by the following anecdote about Warburg’s disappearance in Rome during a parade under Mussolini: [I]t so happened that Warburg disappeared from the sight of his companions. They anxiously waited for him back in the Hotel Eden (…). Bing and others even telephoned the police. But Warburg reappeared in the hotel before midnight, and when he was reproached he soberly replied something like this in his picturesque German: ‘You know that throughout my life I have been interested in the revival of paganism and pagan festivals. Today I had the chance of my life to be present at the re-paganization of Rome, and you complain that I remained to watch it.’52

In a diary entry Warburg wrote on 5 November 1928, when he and Bing were staying in Assisi, one indirectly becomes aware of Bing’s response to Warburg’s incessant need for attention. She often tried to defuse difficult situations with her mild humour: 5. November 928 Nachmittags beim Zahnarzt Faso; Reinigung. Im Poimandres gelesen. Sehr freundlicher Brief von Bianchi. College Bing sagt, ich hätte eine Schwäche für zuhörende Frauen.53

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Once the nagging toothache had been conquered, Warburg was, in any case, pleased that Bing accompanied him. Ten days later, on 15 November 1928, he wrote in the Tagebuch: Bin ganz und gar glücklich, daß Coll. B. mitgegangen ist: leicht haben wir es ja nicht miteinander, aber von ihr geht der feste und feine Wille zur ‘Klärung’ aus, der mich alten betrübten Menschen zwingt, alle meine verstaubten Einfühlungen und Einsichten zusammenzuublen und aufzupolieren. Ohne sie wäre ich nie wieder an die italienischen Engramme aktiv gestaltend herangegangen.54

Once again, Bing’s clear mind rose to the occasion, challenging Warburg to organise his own thoughts. However, Italy appealed to more than just Bing’s ratio, the country also touched her emotions. At various places in the Tagebuch, Bing took the time to record her impressions of the landscape, in addition to producing the customary voluminous notes on monuments and works of art. For example, her lyrical description of Capri, which nevertheless contains some irony: Capri ist das hinreisend schönste an erhabenem Kitsch und erschütternder Sentimentalität, das man sich vorstellen kann : heroische Landschaft auf Miniaturbasis, Hochgebirgswildheit übersponnen mit rauschig duftendem Jelängerjelieber, weißen Rosen, süßbunten Riecherbsen und dämonisch schwarzornamentalen Kakteen, blühenden Felsabhänge über einem Meer von der sonnenleuchtenden Klarheit blauer Saphire und grüner Smaragden, zwischen Felsen von der doppelten oder dreifachen Höhe von Helgoland verlorene Plätzchen kieseligen Strandes, vor denen sich das Meer unabsehbar ausbreitet, riesige Blöcke mit weißsalzüberkrusteten Wassermoosen.55

Karen Michels attributes Bing’s emotional response to the Italian landscape to a transformation that was triggered by her initiation into the Italian way of life, which was previously unknown to her, and which seduces her on occasion to indulge in a few italientrunkene, zunehmend schwärmerische Natur- und Kunstkommentare.56

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Fig. 5. Aby Warburg in Florence, 1898. From: Aby Warburg, Fragmente zur Ausdruckskunde, eds. Ulrich Pfisterer & Hans Christian Hönes, (Aby Warburg. Gesammelte Schriften, IV), Berlin, 2015, p. 2

In the end, the “rational salamander” Bing turns out not to be wholly insensitive to the fire of pathos. Italy brought Bing closer to the source of Warburg’s inspiration, and their personal bond was undoubtedly strengthened by the journey. According to Bing, the research trip to Italy was the absolute highlight of Warburg’s intellectual life. Far away from Hamburg, he re-experienced in Italy the productivity that characterised his former life in Florence (fig. 5). In a letter to the Wittkower couple on 12 December 1929, Bing wrote this about Warburg’s stay in Italy: Es war ein solcher Höhepunkt im Leben des Professors, eine so wunderbare Lösung und kathartische Zusammenfassung diesen ganzen heroischen und ewig kämpferischen Lebens, dass er dieses Jahr fern von allen quälenden Beeinträchtigungen des immer angefochtenen und anfechtenden Hamburger Milieus und anknüpfend an die relativ glücklichsten, weil fruchtbarsten Jahre seines früheren Lebens, verleben durfte.57

In an earlier letter to Mrs. Bachrach on 2 December 1929, Bing wrote the following about this cathartic moment in the life of Aby Warburg:

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Wenn man jetzt das gesamte Schaffen überschaut, ist man erschüttert über die Consequenz und Intuitive Zielsicherheit des Weges und alles, was in den letzten zweieinhalb Jahren geschehen ist, bekommt ein anderes Gesicht, weil man die Notwendigkeit fühlt, mit der das Werk, das nach Erlösung aus dem Chaos des Erlebnisses strebte, sich gegen alle Hemmungen und Convenienzen des äusseren Lebens gewaltsam aber erfolgreich durchzusetzen vermochte.58

These insights, which gradually and with a certain degree of efficacy emerged from the chaos, eventually crystallised in the Bilderatlas, which, in the last weeks before Warburg’s death, gradually took on a definite form.59 On 18 December 1929, Bing wrote about this topic to Margarete Gütschow: Das Wunderbare ist nun, dass während bisher der Atlas doch immer noch ein grandioses Chaos gewesen war, aus dem zwar bald hier bald dort ein Stück Kosmos hervorleuchtete, aus dem aber immerhin die zu Grunde liegende Ordnung nur für den Wissenden zu ahnen war, in den letzten Wochen eine Fassung der Bildtafeln entstanden ist, die Saxl, als er sie, von England zurückkehrend, zum ersten Mal sah, sofort als das grossartigste bezeichnete, was Warburg je gemacht habe, und die mit ganz geringen Aenderungen einfach fertig zur Herausgabe sind.60

According to Bing, the last years of Warburg’s life were intellectually the years of cosmic order in the chaos. The remarkable fact was that Bing was one of the privileged witnesses of this transformation in Warburg’s life. Aby Warburg died on 26 October 1929, barely a few months after his return from Italy. Bing’s account of his death only confirms how close she had grown to Warburg in this period. In a letter to Marianne Joseph, dated 12 December 1929, she wrote: Die äusseren Daten sind so: am 26. Oktober war ich zum Essen beim Professor. Wir sind nur deshalb nicht zusammen abends ausgegangen, weil ich so rasend erkältet war, ein Zufall, für den ich nicht dankbar genug sein kann, denn so haben wir einen denkbar harmonischen, sogar vergnügten Abend mit Frau Professor zusammen gehabt, dann noch ein Gespräch allein. Als er sich nach seiner Gewohnheit eine halbe Stunde hinlegen wollte, meinte ich, von oben Frau Professors Stimme zu hören, die ‘Aby’ rief, lief hinauf, um zu erfahren, dass ich mich geirrt haben müsste, lief, damit er sich nicht ängstigen sollte, eilig wieder herunter

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und fand ihn tot, d.h. es wurde mir erst vielleicht eine Viertelstunde hinterher klar, dass dieses plötzliche, unverständliche und in einem unbegreiflichen, notwendig erscheinenden Geheimnis sich vollziehende Ereignis wirklich das schreckliche Definitivum war, als das es sich mehr und mehr herausstellte.61

It is remarkable that Bing, in an attempt to make sense of this overwhelming event, resorts to the adjective notwendig, the word with which she had struggled so much on the eve of her 30th birthday in her dissertation on Lessing (see part II). Barely ten years later, she committed the same word to paper again in this letter to Marianne Joseph, to describe the Geheimnis which, in her opinion, was concealed behind the event of Warburg’s death. Soon practical affairs took over, and Gertrud Bing occupied herself with the preservation of Warburg’s legacy. The library had to find a new equilibrium. The gap left by Warburg’s death led to the creation of a “Warburg Myth,” as Bing put it in a letter she wrote to Saxl from Florence: seit Warburg tot ist, kreist die Bibliothek um einen nicht mehr existierenden Mittelpunkt.62 The creation of myths was fuelled by the fact that Warburg did not leave an elaborately written oeuvre behind, which might have served as a reference point for his followers.63 After Warburg’s death and the relocation of the institute to London in the 1930s, Bing was long seen as a factor of continuity. Heise writes in his memoir: Als ich im Frühlung 1939 Gertrud Bing zuletzt in London gesprochen habe, war es uns manchmal, als stünde Warburg selbst leibhaft neben uns.64 It is therefore not surprising that Momigliano considers Bing to be la custode della tradizione dell’Istituto Warburg 65, and Heise describes her as die Sachwalterin seines wissenschaftliches Erbes 66. Bing’s first achievement as the unwavering guardian of the Warburg legacy was the publication of his Gesammelte Schriften in 1932 for which she, besides the index, also wrote the foreword.67 In addition, it is likely that Bing began planning a biography about Warburg at an early stage. This is clear from the correspondence with Carl Georg Heise in May 1939.68 In 1946, Heise, who intended to publish his own memoirs of Warburg, insisted in a second letter that he be allowed to see the manuscript.69 Eventually, the Hamburg Senate agreed to financially support the publication of the biography on the occasion of the celebration of Warburg’s centenary, which was planned for 1966. However, Bing died before the project could be completed and reputedly had her preparatory work destroyed.70

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1.2.2. An Intellectual Parenthood. Gertrud Bing and Fritz Saxl (1890-1948) In addition to Warburg, Fritz Saxl (1890-1948) was the person who knew Bing the longest (fig. 6). She met him during her early career at the K.B.W. Their fates remained intertwined during and after the establishment of the institute in London. Saxl obtained his doctorate in Vienna (1912), was Warburg’s assistant from 1914 onwards and his librarian from 1920 onwards.71 As an art historian, he had two expertises: Rembrandt and medieval astrology.72 The professional achievements of the tandem Saxl-Bing cannot be understated. Together, they laid the foundation for the sophisticated thematic library organisation that characterises The Warburg Institute to this day, which can be summarised as das Gesetz der guten Nachbarschaft.73 Following the American example, Bing considered the Buch als Mittel der Selbstbildung 74 and the librarian as an active guide of the visitor on his/her search for knowledge 75. In a later reflection on the history of the library, Saxl also referred explicitly to Bing’s active

Fig. 6. Fritz Saxl in the Library at Hamburg. From: Fritz Saxl (1890-1948). A Volume of Memorial Essays from his Friends in England, ed. D.J. Gordon, London, 1957, Pl. 2

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cooperation.76 Therefore, Arnaldo Momigliano is probably right to state that tutte le ricerche di Saxl sono inscindibile dalla collaborazione di Bing.77 This is most clearly expressed in Bing’s edition of Saxl’s Lectures (1957), for which she herself wrote the foreword.78 Her memoires on Saxl, published in the same year, bear witness to a deep familiarity with Saxl’s intellectual universe.79 The tandem Saxl-Bing also operated on a personal level, albeit on more bumpy roads. Anyone who studies Bing’s personal relationship with Saxl, comes across the following peculiarity in biographical notes about Bing. Most biographies do not address Bing’s marital status, but those that do seem to provide contradictory information. ODNB briefly notes that Bing was unmarried80, while Dictionary of Art Historians lists Saxl as “Bing’s life partner”81. In the end, neither description turns out to be wrong. This should not come as a surprise, since this apparent contradiction in the facts conceals a certain caution when talking about the exact nature of Saxl’s relationship with Bing. We see the same caution emerging during their lives. The fact was that Saxl had been married to Elise Bienenfeld since 1913.82 It was not a happy marriage. The mentally unbalanced Elise had been living apart from her husband in Vienna since an early stage, and was unable to raise their children on her own. Even when she emigrated to England a few years after Saxl, in 1935, she did not move in with her husband. Saxl, for his part, never applied for divorce.83 Bing’s relationship with the married Saxl was not tolerated by Warburg. In 1928 he expressly forbade Saxl to contact Bing behind his back. One can only guess in what way Bing responded to Warburg’s interference84, which resulted in Saxl’s temporary exile from Hamburg. Perhaps she had no choice but to bend to his opinion. Für sie war Warburg nicht nur der Arbeitgeber, sondern der väterliche Freund, zu dessen Wort sie stand, dessen Wort sie sich beugte.85 Bing’s loyalty to Warburg proved to be decisive, even if this did not make the personal struggle any easier. In a letter she sent to the Cassirer family from Florence on 1 June 1929, her strong feelings can still be heard. Weswegen ich dies ganze auf mich genommen habe, weswegen ich weiter kämpfe und auch jetzt die Hoffnung auf eine menschlich mögliche Lösung noch nicht aufgegeben habe, ist doch nicht zum geringsten Teile die Sorge für den Weiterbestand der Bibliothek.86

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Ultimately, the survival of the library turned out to be the most important factor. It must have tasted bitterly that the joint success of Bing and Saxl on the professional level restricted their freedom on the personal level to such an extent, that they had no choice but to resign themselves to their circumstances. In a letter to Ernst Cassirer, Saxl displayed the same tendency towards compliance. On 13 October 1929, he wrote: Ich habe mir Ihre Vorwürfe gegen mich und Gertrud Bing sehr zu Herzen genommen, habe meine Frau daraufhin gebeten, wieder nach der Wolterstraße zu kommen und auch selbst dahin zurück [zu gehen]. Ich habe das getan, nachdem ich mit Gertrud Bing gesprochen hatte und sie vollkommen damit einverstanden war. Weder sie noch ich könnten etwas Ganzes vom Leben haben, wenn meine Frau dadurch unglücklich wird.87

For Saxl (and Bing) it is ultimately the happiness of his wife that is the deciding factor. With the sudden death of Warburg on 26 October 1929, two weeks after this letter was sent, a difficult period began in Saxl and Bing’s professional life. The rise of National Socialism in 1933 constituted another grim twist of fate (cf. 1.3.). On the professional level, emigration to Great Britain indeed drove Saxl and Bing into turbulent waters. On the personal level, however, the relocation of the institute to London seemed, in the long run, to give them the freedom they had been seeking for so long. Saxl spent the last years of his life in Dulwich88, in the company of Bing. Zusammen bewohnten sie im südlich der Themse gelegen Vorort Dulwich nebeneinander liegende Häuser mit separaten Eingängen, Verbindungstür und gemeinsamem Garten.89 The shared garden was planted and maintained by Bing herself.90 As for the interior, “The house had a strong visual ethos, austerely comfortable and ordered in a taste I thought I recognized, a Germanic cognate of a familiar enlightened Quakerish English taste, but with the strong presence of Saxl through the many small Near Eastern objects.”91 The adjoining houses in Dulwich became the perfect location for various memorable meetings with friends and colleagues. Phyllis Pray Bober remembers the parental hospitality extended by Saxl and Bing during a visit to The Warburg Institute with her husband in 1947:

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He [i.e., Fritz Saxl] and his partner, Gertrude Bing, represented the most direct heritage of Warburg’s vision of a historical psychology of expression devoted to antiquity’s persistent strains of knowledge and image affecting both Orient and Occident. Yet their house in Dulwich came to mean spiritual nurture for us that matched their intellectual parenthood. […B]oth he and Bing exhibited what could be called parental concern for us both – our plans for the future and for family as well as the fate of our researches.92

The domestic companionship that Saxl and Bing found in Dulwich, which was witnessed by many friends and colleagues, did not translate into a legally registered commitment. When Saxl died on 22 March 1948, Bing’s grief for the loss of her life partner remained hidden and klang in den offiziellen Dokumenten nirgends an.93 In a letter to Toni Cassirer, dated 27 August 1948, she was able to express her feelings to some extent: und wo soll ich mit der ganzen Zärtlichkeit hin, die seit 26 Jahren ihm gehört hat?94 In other letters she wrote after Saxl’s death, her tendency to bury herself in her sense of duty gains the upper hand again.95 In a letter to Dora and Erwin Panofsky, she states: “I know life will be senseless for me from now on but what does it matter? I am the last person who has any right to complain.”96 A letter to the Solmitz couple, dated 2 August 1948, expresses these ambivalent feelings clearly: Jetzt sieht eben alles äußerlich schon aus als ob nichts passiert wäre – oder, wie ich es hundertmal am Tage mit Schrecken empfinde, als wenn Saxl nur verreist wäre. Ich weiß daß ich nur erst am Rande des Abgrunds stehe durch den ich hindurch muss; und ich wollte beinahe ich wäre schon tief drin. Aber es ist doch alles noch zu unfassbar. Der Übergang vom Glück zum Unglück war ja auch so schnell. (…) Nur – wie soll es nur weitergehen? In dieser Frage liegt ja nicht nur die Hilflosigkeit in Bezug auf mich selbst – sondern auch die schreckliche Sorge um die Hinterlassenschaft der beiden. Dieses merkwürdige Instrument, aus einem Hirngespinst eines im Grunde doch ganz einsamen Menschen erwachsen, dem Saxl ein solches Kapital von Wohlwollen, Glauben und Vertrauen erworben hat, wie sollen wir es nur auch mit vereinten Kräften, weiterführen.97

1.3. Gertrud Bing as Jewish Art Historian im Exil 1.3.1. Tausendmahl mehr Deutscher als Jude. Gertrud Bing on Jewish Assimilation Like Aby Warburg and Fritz Saxl, Gertrud Bing belonged to the Jewish community.98 As daughter of the Jewish merchant Moritz Bing, she was, as Emily Levine casually remarks, “a product of the Hamburg Jewish trading Bürgertum”.99 The fact that Bing descended from a family of traders is not surprising in view of the Hamburg context. Der selbständige Mittelstand in Handel und Industrie stellte die ökonomische Grundlage der Hamburger Juden dar.100 The fact that Bing was a member of the more affluent bourgeoisie is demonstrated by the kind of education she received. She was probably not sent to the Jewish Mädchenschulen that had been founded at the end of the 19th century for the poorer population, but, like most Jewish daughters of affluent citizens, was able to complete her education at the Lutheran Kloster St. Johannis.101 While Bing’s Jewish descent cannot be denied, the meaning one ought to attribute to the word ‘Jewish’ to describe her case, is less clear. With Frankfurt, Hamburg belonged to the traditionsreichen Großgemeinden.102 It was also one of the communities where liberal Judaism gained a foothold in the second half of the 19th century. At the same time, a liberal reform took place that emanated from the Hamburg state itself, which stimulated the emancipation of Jewish citizens. Between 1860 and 1865, a series of laws were enacted that led to religious freedom and the abolition of the Zwangsgemeinde, which all Hamburg Jews had to be members of until that point. These reforms paved the way for the integration of Jewish citizens into political and legal offices. Simultaneously, reforms took place within the Jewish community itself, giving rise to what later became known as the Hamburger System.103 This system reflected, in a certain sense, the religious diversity that was encouraged by the statelegislated freedom of religion, which also came to the fore in the tolerant attitude towards diversity within the Jewish community itself. To illustrate: the liberal Tempelverband in Hamburg co-existed peacefully with the Orthodox Synagogenverband and the conservative congregation around the Neue Dammtorsynagoge, which was founded in 1894.104 The fact that non-religious Jews105 could

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also be members of the Jewish community was a new development, triggered by the growing tendency to assimilate to German culture, which was prevalent among a large proportion of Jewish citizens during the Weimar Republic. Up to the early 1930s, there were many Jewish citizens who publicly expressed their admiration for German culture.106 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, with his enlightened humanism, was also a favourite in the Jewish community. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was even more admired. The immortalisation of his friendship with the Jew Moses Mendelssohn in the play Nathan der Weise (1779), which calls for tolerance, was applauded by many Jewish citizens (fig. 7). It is therefore not surprising that the Jewish community was closely involved in the commemoration of Lessing’s bicentenary in 1929, and the 150th anniversary of his death in 1931.107 Therefore, it was no coincidence that Gertrud Bing devoted herself to the study of Lessing’s work at the beginning of her academic career. According to Karen Michels and Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Bing gave voice in her dissertation – albeit indirectly – to the same hope for a religiously tolerant society, anchored in a communal ethics.108 In that period of her life, Bing did not engage in any conscious reflection about her own Jewishness. This means that Bing cannot be counted among the representatives of the Jewish renaissance109, which ran parallel to (and sometimes counter to) the ongoing tendency towards assimilation during the Weimar Republic, a renaissance which led to a resurgence of Jewish self-awareness. Bing, for her part, probably barely questioned her Jewish identity in the 1920s. “Bing belonged to the very generation which no longer felt afflicted by the earlier struggles of assimilation.”110 In a letter from 1933, which I will discuss in greater detail below, looking back on her upbringing, she therefore recorded in an uncomplicated way: Natürlich bin ich meiner Bildung, Lebensweise, Umweltverbundenheit nach, auch was die liebevolle Zugehörigkeit zur Heimat anbetrifft, tausendmal mehr Deutscher als Jude.111 I deduce from this that Bing was not only the product of a Jewish bourgeoisie that made a fortune in trade, but also the product of the assimilation efforts of her liberal or non-religious Jewish ancestors. In the 1920s, at least, she considered it as her acquired right to be more German than Jewish. Whether she experienced the growing anti-Semitism as a threat in this period can no longer be ascertained, unless one views her study of Lessing as a silent protest and plea for the preservation of the acquired ethico-religious liberties and tolerance. In any case, it is clear that her mentor Aby Warburg did feel

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Fig. 7. Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800-1882), Lavater and Lessing Visit Moses Mendelssohn, 1856. Berkeley, CA, Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life

the need to reflect on his Jewish identity in the 1920s.112 Due to a cruel twist of fate, Bing was eventually forced to wrestle with this aspect of her identity beginning in 1933. Bing’s reflection on her Jewishness was forced upon her by the course of history itself.

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1.3.2. A Twist of Fate. Gertrud Bing Ponders her Jewish Identity After the dramatic victory of the NSDAP during the Reichstag elections of 5 March 1933, the directorial staff of the K.B.W. soon considered the possibility of establishing the library abroad113. Gertrud Bing’s active contribution to this discernment process is documented, among other sources, in the letters she wrote to Eric M. Warburg on 18 and 28 September 1933114. Her intellectual considerations during this period come to the fore in a letter she wrote on 29 May 1933 to Hanns Swarzenski115, which was recently published and analysed by Hanna Vorholt116. Swarzenski grew up as a member of the Lutheran Protestant community, but in the aftermath of “the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of 7 April 1933,” he discovered “that both his grandmothers were Jewish”.117 The correspondence between Swarzenski and Bing reads as the testimony of two German citizens who struggled with their Jewish roots, with which they were confronted when National Socialism came to power. The letter also bears witness to their struggle with German identity itself, and more specifically with the growing discrepancy between the German ideal in which they themselves believed and the new ideology that the young dictatorship imposed on them. It is striking that, in this correspondence, Bing’s reflections on fatum come to the fore again (see part II).118 Fate handed Bing back her Jewish identity, and she felt obliged to begin regarding herself as a Jew. From an intellectual point of view, it must have been a strange sensation for her to see how an identity characteristic, which she had previously regarded as less important, or at least as less distinctive, suddenly moved to the forefront. This brings us to a term that she often used during her academic career at The Warburg Institute: Auseinandersetzung. The historical upheaval of 1933 forced Bing to deal with the dialectic question of being both German and Jewish.119 Surprisingly enough, being Jewish now came first weil seine Abstammung mit seiner Geschichte zusammenfällt und dadurch erst zu dem Schicksal wird, wie es sich mir darstellt.120 As a result of this Auseinandersetzung not only ‘being Jewish’ but also ‘being German’ acquired a new meaning for Bing in 1933. The German identity she previously championed was, in the words of Avraham Barkai and Paul Mendes-Flor, einem Deutschland humanistischer Kultur und humanistischer Werte,

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der Vision eines Deutschlands, wie die klassischen Dichter und Denker sie gefördert hatten.121 This German ideal, in which a large part of the Jewish community had believed during the Weimar Republic, turned out to be no longer safeguarded by the National Socialist Deutschtümelei, according to Bing.122 Under this new regime, the possibility of assimilation turned out to be an illusion as well: Es wäre unendlich viel leichter, wenn an die Möglichkeit oder Wünschbarkeit einer völligen Assimilation zu glauben wäre; die Geschichte lehrt, daß der Leidensweg des ewigen Juden immer wieder angetreten werden muß, und die einzige Rettung, die der einzelne dabei finden kann, ist, daß er sich über den stolzen Fluch des Ausgesondertseins, dem er untersteht, klar ist, daß er ihn bejaht, und daß er die Konsequenzen daraus zieht.123

For Bing, the only possible way out was to accept the bitter fate124 that history handed her. However, she did this in an active and positive way. By choosing to leave Germany, she not only took matters into her own hands, but she also saw the opportunity to cultivate the German ideal that she envisioned in new places. Das was ich als Jude vertrete, kann ich auch in England oder Frankreich sein; das was ich durch meine deutsche Umwelt geworden bin, wird dabei nicht verloren sein, denn ich gebe mein Wesen und meine Ideale so weiter, wie sie durch das Deutsche in mir geformt worden sind; umso reicher und differenzierter wird, oder kann zum mindestens, das Resultat sein.125

In an attempt to encourage Swarzenski to consider emigration himself, Bing once again drew upon her cherished German ideal. With the phrase abseits, wer ist’s she quoted Goethe’s Harzreise im Winter. This is no accident. Goethe’s reflections on Fortuna led him to conclude that one should not subject oneself too easily to the powers of Fortuna. It is more wholesome to observe the world from a safe distance instead, in order to avoid being swept away by fate.126 When Bing and her closest colleagues left Germany towards the end of 1933, she did exactly what Goethe recommended her to do. Instead of blindly following the chariot steered by Fortuna, she decided to follow her own course. On the eve of Swarzenski’s own emigration to the USA, Bing was able to write him from London, on 9 September 1936: Von uns kann ich Ihnen erzählen, dass sich unserer Schicksal in den letzten Wochen entschieden hat.127

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1.3.3. Steering One’s Own Course. Gertrud Bing and the Move of the K.B.W. to Londen The history of the K.B.W.’s move to, and establishment in, London has already been narrated in other contributions, most recently in 2012 by Dorothea McEwan. In this essay it is impossible to address the details of the journey128, the difficulties encountered during the establishment in London129, and the challenges met during the temporary establishment of the library in Denham during the London Bombing in WW II130. What concerns us in this section are the implications of this voluntary exile for Bing’s experience of her German and Jewish identity. Shortly after her arrival in London in December 1933, Bing resolutely decided to give the new beginning in England a chance and, on 1 January 1934, deregistered from the German-Israeli community in Hamburg.131 However, it was difficult to find new roots on English soil.132 In her letter to Ernst Cassirer of 24 April 1936, Bing was frank: the library was still in a precarious situation. [U]nsere Zukunft hier ist alles andere als gesichert. Für nächstes Jahr ist eigentlich noch kein Pfenning Geld vorhanden, und auch in Bezug auf die Unterkunft, die wir nach unserm im September bevorstehenden Fortzug aus Thames House bekommen werden, ist noch nichts entschieden. Das ist natürlich eine Lage, die uns bei allem Vertrauen ziemlich nervös macht, besonders angesichts der europäische Situation, die ja der Fortführung eines wissenschaftlichen Unternehmens nicht sehr günstig ist.133

The financial uncertainty of the early London years made it difficult for Saxl and Bing to grow roots there, even after Bing’s actual resignation from the Jewish community. Ironically, it was the enduring bond with Jewish acquaintances from the Hamburg period that, in addition to the practical organisation of the library, placed an additional burden on Bing. During the war years she soon felt compelled to extend hospitality to other stranded immigrants.134 Out of necessity, there were limits to this hospitality however, as evidenced by the case of Walter Solmitz, who stayed behind in Germany and for whom help was sought in November 1936, which Bing was unable to give at that time. Only when the gravity of the situation fully manifested itself after the November Pogrom in 1938, and Solmitz was deported to Dachau, Bing and Saxl finally

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succeeded in getting the Solmitz couple safely to London at the beginning of 1939.135 This anecdote illustrates the extent to which Saxl and Bing pushed their limits in order to provide persecuted German scientists with shelter abroad. A sign of her loyalty to her new fatherland was Bing’s commitment as an ambulance volunteer during WW II “as part of the London Auxilliary Ambulance Service”. Until, as Enriqueta Frankfort laconically adds, “she was dismissed as an ‘enemy alien’”.136 This conclusion painfully reveals the ambiguous position that Bing found herself in at the time. At the time, Bing herself tried to take a neutral position towards her German and Jewish origins. From her letter to Esther Samson137 about the Library Association Record, one learns that Bing judged it important not only to order publications by German authors in exile, most of whom were Jewish, but also to include other publications from Germany, in order to make a neutral and balanced assessment possible.138

1.3.4. Sehnsucht for the Heimat. Gertrud Bing after WW II Towards the end of WW II, in 1944, the library was definitively incorporated as The Warburg Institute in the University of London, where Bing continued to assume her role as assistant director until 1955.139 In 1946 she became a British citizen.140 When Henri Frankfort, who succeeded Fritz Saxl after his death in 1948, died unexpectedly in 1954, Bing became director of the institute in 1955 and Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition at the University of London, until her retirement in 1959.141 In that period, the institute also moved to its permanent location at Woburn Square in Bloomsbury.142 Bing’s fate now seemed definitively tied to the United Kingdom. After her retirement, however, she gradually got more in touch with her German roots.143 Gertrud Bing returned to Hamburg for the first time on 31 October 1958, on the occasion of the inauguration of a statue in honour of Warburg in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, where she also gave a speech.144 Bing was fully aware of the importance of this moment and, at the end of her speech, took the opportunity to emphasise Warburg’s German and Jewish identity by quoting the well-known concise way in which her mentor described himself: Ebreo di sangue, Amburghese di cuore, d’anima Fiorentino.145 Meyer and Treml interpret her speech as follows: Bing stellte ihn [i.e. Warburg] also bewußt in die

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Tradition des deutschen Judentums mit europäischem Geist, zu deren letzten Überlebenden auch sie selbst zählte. Daß sie dies im Rahmen einer Feier tat, die seitens des Hamburger Senats auch als ein Schließen aufgerissener Gräben gedacht war, machte es um so brisanter.146 Bing herself was overwhelmed by the experience to be back in her native country after many years had passed. She described this momentous experience in a letter to Walter Solmitz. Ich will mich hüten irgendetwas zu romantisieren, aber der Sprung, weit hinter 1933 zurück in meine Kindheit hinein, war ein seltsames Erlebnis; und ich kann nicht leugnen daß mir die Vitalität der Stadt, die Kraft einen Charakter wieder herzustellen und alles Neue ihm anzugleichen doch imponiert hat. Die Landschaft von Alster und Elbe trägt dazu bei Wunden zu heilen (körperliche wie psychologische). Es war ein Schock (der mir erst hinterher zum Bewusstsein kam) eine Vertrautheit zu spüren die viel tiefer geht als alles was man seither erlebt hat.147

Having nearly reached the end of her life, Bing experienced her visit to the country where she spent her childhood as a blessing for both body and mind. It shows how much Hamburg, in spite of the time that had passed and the physical distance, was still rooted in her.

1.4. A Gender Perspective on the Life of Gertrud Bing Being a woman, Bing held an ambivalent position, not only within the Warburg trinity, but also in the K.B.W. and the later Warburg Institute. On the one hand, it seems she could not fully escape the 19th century bourgeois milieu, which affirmed that servitude, in particular, was an appropriate virtue for women (1.4.1.). This situation was probably linked to Warburg’s own attitude towards the changing role of women at the time, who gradually began to claim their right to employment (1.4.2.). On the other hand, as an independent woman, Gertrud Bing resolutely chose to exercise a profession that was in line with her academic capacities (1.4.3.). Her perseverance was remarkable in this respect. The conclusion that Bing spent an entire life working in quiet servitude, in the shadow of her male colleagues, is therefore not only partly unfounded, but also denies Bing the respect she deserves for choosing her own destiny.

1.4.1. Ich diene. A Life in the Shadow? During the Weimar Republic, Hamburg was the right place for women who wanted to perfect their academic skills. Of all the German universities, the newly founded Hamburg university had the highest number of female students, who, in addition, actually obtained their university degrees.148 Moreover, it had been customary for some time in Jewish circles to offer women the opportunity to continue their studies. When the universities opened their doors to female students at the turn of the century, Jewish girls were often the first among the demographic to leap at the chance.149 For a long time, however, women remained under-represented in professional life and especially in the academic world. The rise of National Socialism, which propagated die ideologische Festschreibung von Frauen auf ihre funktionelle Rolle als Hausfrau und Mutter was no improvement and many female academics were removed from their posts.150 The emigration to London meant freedom for Bing in that respect, and facilitated her emancipation as a female academic.

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However, when investigating Bing’s intellectual legacy, it is difficult not to follow Emily Levine in her line of thought that “perhaps characteristic of the bourgeois nineteenth-century intellectual woman, she spent her life serving the men of the Warburg School, including her mentor Cassirer, as well as Saxl and Warburg himself ”.151 Marie-Anne Lescourret unreservedly puts herself in Bing’s shoes, picturing her possible frustrations on the subject: Sans jamais rien dire à ce sujet, Gertrud Bing a sans doute pâti de son genre, qui la confine longtemps au rôle d’ ‘assistante’, tandis que la direction d’un institut auquel elle a tant contribué ne lui revient qu’en bout de course, cinq ans avant la retraite.152 One wonders whether these assessments, both by female scholars, do not also reflect women’s present-day struggles in the academic world. In any case, Lescourret has to admit that not only Bing, but also Saxl and Warburg left relatively few publications behind: Tout comme Saxl et Warburg lui-même, elle aura été absorbée par sa tâche au détriment d’une ‘œuvre’ personnelle, laquelle s’évalue d’ordinaire à l’épaisseur d’un socle de papier.153 The problem is therefore more complex than is apparent at first sight. It was not only Bing’s gender, but above all her concern for all the practical aspects of establishing an institution still in its infancy, that led her to refrain from elaborating a comprehensive intellectual oeuvre. However, one cannot escape the impression that this sense of responsibility for day-to-day practical organisation was precisely triggered by her identity as a woman. It was almost automatically expected of women that they would be the ones who kept things going. In this respect, Karen Michels and Charlotte Schoell-Glass are perhaps correct to state that Bing’s motto could have been Ich Diene.154 In stating this, they shed light on a covert expectation pattern that has been tacitly internalised by many women. I already gave some examples of Bing’s role as personal assistant to Aby Warburg (1.2.1.). It doesn’t seem exaggerated to maintain that Warburg’s psychological well-being depended on the women that surrounded him.155 We cannot know for certain how Bing viewed her wide-ranging responsibilities, but we do know that she complained about the excessive workload at some point. On 7 July 1927, she wrote in the Tagebuch: Ich muß leider konstatieren, daß meine in letzter Zeit verringerte Tätigkeit im Betrieb der B.W. spürbar wird. Teils liegt es an meinem Umzug, trotzdem ich mich wirklich bemüht habe, die Dienststunden nach Möglichkeit von Beein-

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trächtigung frei zu halten. Teils liegt es aber auch – so schmerzlich es mir ist, es auszusprechen – an meiner stärkeren Beteiligung an den rein wissenschaftlichen Aufgaben und Interessen der Leiter. Ich bin früher ausschließlich im technischen Betrieb tätig gewesen, und meine Arbeit dort, die mir auch niemand abnehmen kann, häuft sich. (…) Viele kleinere liegengebliebene Arbeiten (…) drücken mich auch. Daß ich lieber persönlich herangezogen werde, bedarf keiner Erwähnung. Ich bitte um freundschaftliche Überlegung, wie die beiden Aufgaben zeitlich, nervlich und geistig zu vereinigen wären!156

To this day, many female academics will recognise themselves in Bing’s struggle to maintain a balance between administrative and intellectual tasks. Yet, the fact that Bing made herself heard in this regard and asked for a reorganisation of her schedule, can be viewed as a sign of independence, not of tacit compliance. After Warburg’s death, that sense of responsibility remained. By the end of 1945, when she considered visiting the Solmitz couple in the USA, she wrote that it was impossible for her to put aside her responsibilities in London: Im Moment bin ich auch hier ziemlich ‘unabkömmlich’ besonders wenn Saxl nicht hier ist. Ich habe das Gefühl daß viele von den besten, menschlichsten, ‘Warburg’ Traditionen gerade jetzt auf dem Spiel stehen.157 While Saxl travelled in freedom without worrying about his wife Elise and his closest colleague (and partner) Gertrud Bing, she apparently could not allow herself the same freedom. After Saxl passed away, this sense of responsibility grew even stronger: Bing prioritised the survival of the Warburg tradition to such a degree, that her own personality seemed to vanish.158 However, one should not focus too exclusively on Bing’s scarce oeuvre and her relatively late appointment as professor. This apparent hiatus conceals not only her capacity for decisive action, of a level that can easily compete with the best managers, but also her high level of personal involvement, which was prized by her environment. Many responsibilities had fallen to her: in addition to cataloguing the library, Bing was in charge of publishing the Studies and various lecture series159, for which she also compiled the indexes160. It is therefore partly due to her decisive action that she, with Warburg and Saxl, left behind a library of tremendous significance.161 In addition to her organisational capacities as part of the library management, Bing’s creativity should by no means be underestimated. It was

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mainly she who helped to conceptualise the library in all its meandering and rich ramifications.162 In addition to her organisational talent, her level of personal involvement impressed as well. Baxandall remembers “her total focus on the person with whom she was talking. It was one-to-one with Bing or nothing much, but there must have been a hundred people who enjoyed this sense of her special attention”.163 Frances Yates was empathically grateful to Bing in the prefaces to The Valois Tapestries (1959)164 and The Art of Memory (1966). In Yates’ words, something of the difference that Gertrud Bing made in the lives of many colleagues and associates can be discerned: Now that the Memory Book is at last ended, the memory of the late Gertrud Bing seems more poignantly present than ever. In the early days, she read and discussed my drafts, watching constantly over my progress, or lack of progress, encouraging and discouraging by turns, ever stimulating with her intense interest and vigilant criticism. She felt that the problems of the mental image, of the activation of images, of the grasp of reality through images – close to those which preoccupied Aby Warburg, whom I only knew through her. (…) I dedicate it to her memory, with deep gratitude for her friendship.165

In this quote, Yates assembles several of Bing’s character traits. She did not only mediate Warburg’s intellectual legacy, she also followed up closely on the progress of her students, and was personally involved in their research projects.

1.4.2. Der Typus der weltzugewandten Nonne. Aby Warburg on Women In light of the changes in the socio-political circumstances of women around the turn of the century, Warburg initially appears as a conservative figure. Starting from a rather traditional and patriarchal perspective, he initially struggled with the gradual changes that society was undergoing, which allowed women to enter the professional world.166 His reflections on the entry of women in the professional world emerge in the following excerpt from the Tagebuch, in which Warburg comments on the visit of two American librarians to the K.B.W.

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Nachmittags die amerikanischen Bibliothekarinnen Miss Williams (Washington) und Miss Walker (Massachusetts) mit College Bing gerne geführt; zeigen jene echte Offenheit für seelsorgerische Nuancen, die neidlos anerkennt, was andere besser können. Solche Frauentypen haben mir Amerika so lieb und unvergeßlich gemacht. (…) In Boston erlebte ich 1894 zum ersten Mal eine ältliche zierlich-kluge Bibliothekarin mit einer Blumenvase vor ihrem Geschäftssitz. Der Typus der weltzugewandten Nonne ist drüben normaler, als bei uns; aber es gibt ähnliches, nur rumorvoller.167

In this excerpt, three things stand out that reveal Warburg’s prejudices against these women. First of all, Warburg especially values the caring involvement and humility of these librarians. Secondly, in his description of the Boston librarian, Warburg pays particular attention to her appearance and brings some specifically female elements to the fore: she is graceful and sensible ‘in spite of ’ her more mature age, and moreover, she does not deny her own ‘femininity’ because she has a bouquet of flowers on her desk. Thirdly, Warburg concludes his description with a light joke, by characterising the librarian as a ‘nun’ who is consecrated to the world, and by making a remark about the loudness of women. One might wonder how Warburg felt about Bing in that respect. Bing scheint seiner Skepsis mit Humor zu begegnen168, Michels states. It was not easy for Warburg to put aside his scepticism about working women. He openly complained that he had lost many good students to marriage: Frln. Dieckhoff entschuldigt ihr Fernbleiben von der Uebung mit Verlobung und unmittelbar darauf folgender Heirat; (…) Statistisch wäre festzustellen, wieviele Verbrechen gegen das aufkeimende geistige Leben der Amor nuptialis auf dem Gewissen hat. Schauderhaft hoher Procentsatz, auch ohne nuptialis. Was sagte Max Liebermann? Die ‘Frauen halten es nicht aus’.169

It must be acknowledged that Warburg’s scepticism in no way prevented him from taking women seriously. In a different entry in the Tagebuch, for instance, he wrote that he admired the perspicacity of Frln. Weinschel170 and Frln. Dr. Cassirer171. Yet there existed de facto a “gendered division of the library”172. Bing and other female staff members, such as Dora Panofsky, “were relegated to the somehow

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‘feminine’ tasks of organizing, filing, and managing, and female students who sought interest in these studies risked falling into this trap”.173 It is therefore surprising that Bing largely succeeded in avoiding this trap: “the Warburg Library’s masculine scholarly space truly welcomed only one woman: Gertrud Bing.”174 One might wonder why Bing, unlike Dora Panofsky175 for example, was admitted to this circle. As mentioned above, Warburg counted both Saxl and Bing as members of the library’s directorial staff. The first thing that stands out is how Warburg himself addressed Gertrud Bing. The names she received in the Tagebuch over the years range from Frln. Bing176 to Bingia177 (Bingiam178, Bingiae179), or (Kollege) Bingio180, Herr Kollege Bingius181, Herr Bingius182, and College Dr Bing183 or College Bing184. At first glance, these names sound somewhat humorous and endearing, but the increasing masculinisation185 of Gertrud Bing is striking. On the other hand, Bing, as an unmarried woman, devoted herself entirely to her work, so much so that she put her own health at risk. It seems as if she had effectively become ‘the nun consecrated to the world’, which Warburg described with slight ridicule when he talked about the female American librarian.186 It remains to be seen whether Bing’s characterisation as a weltzugewandte Nonne paints the whole picture. The In Memoriams, which were often written by her male colleagues187, do indeed resemble hagiographies on occasion. By way of illustration, I list a collection of epithets attributed to Bing: her meeting with Warburg is considered a “conversion”188; one admires “her vocation [and] her self-effacing discipleship”189, her selbstlose inspirierende Anima190, ihre stille Tätigkeit; she has die Liebe und Verehrung unzähliger Menschen erworben; her editorial work is ein Muster pietätvoller Gelehrtenarbeit 191; one praises “the unremitting toil with which, totally unsparing of herself, she served the cause which she had most at heart”192 and ihre pietätvolle Bescheidenheit, die sich im Dienste am Werk still im Hintergrunde hält 193 etc.

1.4.3. Einer der schönsten Menschentypen, den ich kenne. Bing’s Ideal of the Working Woman In spite of all the pious characterisations, Bing saw herself as a progressive woman, and she likely fits the picture. Her ambition already became apparent during her youth, when, after obtaining a teacher’s degree, she decided to

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complete her education at the universities of Munich and Hamburg. Her ambition was further fuelled when, on Cassirer’s advice, she was appointed to the K.B.W. and when, upon being confronted with the Nazi threat, she resolutely chose to take matters into her own hands by relocating to London, together with Fritz Saxl and the other staff members. On 2 May 1929, Gertrud Bing met the British archaeologist and art historian Eugénie Strong (née Sellers) in Rome (fig. 8). Mrs. Arthur Strong was a pioneer in the field and an expert in classical archaeology, with a particular interest in Roman religion. In 1909 she became assistant director of the British School of Archaeology in Rome.194 After the meeting, Bing was clearly impressed and wrote the following in the Tagebuch: Währenddessen erzählt mir Mrs Strong von ihre einstigen Ehrgeizen, eine wissenschaftliche Größe zu werden, die sie aufgegeben habe (katholisches Demutserlebnis spielt hinein!) als sie gesehen hat, daß sie die höchste Höhe nicht erreichen würde. Hätte seitdem ihren inneren Beruf daraus gemacht, andern ‘Suchern’ die historische Schichtung Roms verständlich und lebendig zu machen. Ich sehe sie jetzt ganz nackt und einfach, ihres doppelten Glanzes als Wissenschaftlerin und Weltdame, die wie Schichten vor ihrem eigentlichen Ich liegen, entkleidet – es bleibt eine ‘arbeitende Frau’ übrig – das ist, in seiner ganzen und ursprünglichen Bedeutung genommen, einer der schönsten Menschentypen, den ich kenne. Mir sympathisch auch ihre Begabung zur ‘Freundschaft’, die für sie einen besonderen Klang hat, und der die sorgfältige Pflege angedeihen lässt.195

Eugénie Strong’s apotheosis brings Bing to the following ephiphanic insight: eine arbeitende Frau (…) – das ist, in seiner ganzen und ursprünglichen Bedeutung genommen einer der schönsten Menschentypen, den ich kenne. For Bing, this was the naked truth and, if one reads between the lines, it was also the ideal that she kept in mind196, because, in the end, Eugénie Strong in all her splendour was essentially that: a working woman, a scientist and a cosmopolitan. Gertrud Bing herself expressed her ambition to be an independent, professional woman by becoming a member of the Zonta Club197, an association for professionally active women that originated in America.198 In this excerpt, Bing jokingly refers to Strong’s katholisches Demutserlebnis. Paradoxically, this reveals another character trait that Bing seemed to admire.

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Fig. 8. Eugénie Strong in the apartment on the Via Balbo in Rome, ca. 1925-1940. From: Stephen L. Dyson, Eugénie Sellers Strong. Portrait of an Archaeologist, London, 2004, Pl. 19

She acknowledges Strong’s modesty, or at least the renunciation of her megalomaniacal aspiration to be the most exceptional academic. Apparently, she respected the fact that Strong chose instead to make herself available to explorers of Rome’s rich history. Bing particularly valued Strong’s capacity for friendship, and her caring attitude. For her close colleagues and friends, Gertrud Bing was, at the end of her life, what Mrs. Strong was to the 36-year-old Bing. Baxandall especially remembers her glorious presence, her perspicacity, light irony, even her slight indiscretion, and cleverness.199 The hint of holiness that characterises some of Bing’s In memoriams, then, should perhaps be rather replaced by the image of her sparkling personality. Schön, daß Gertrud Bing wieder als Cicerone funken konnte,200 Warburg once wrote about her. Bing’s perspicacity expressed itself above all in her unparalleled moral judgement, through which she valued those who did the right thing. In this context, Edna Purdie mentions her warm hospitality, which nevertheless went hand in hand with a sharp sense of moral discernment:

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Her domestic hospitality had an individual charm. (…) And for the ideas, experiences and plans of others she had an eager and continuing interest. (…) It was I believe to a great extent the underlying stability which lent a special value to her judgement of things and people. (…) She set a high value on clarity and nobility of purpose, on intellectual and artistic integrity.201

This is in line with Enriqueta Frankfort’s brief description of Bing. “Short, dark, and spectacled, with a serious expression which easily changed to a friendly smile, Gertrud Bing impressed all by her strength of purpose, courage, and humanity.”202 To some extent, Gertrud Bing found a place of her own, a niche in a male-dominated world, in which she could express her ethical values and nurture her intellectual growth. But, in a certain sense, it was also a place that hindered her own development, because she occupied this niche mainly in the role of an assistant to her male colleague scientists.203 Was Bing’s humanity her Achilles heel in the academic world? A moral perfectionist like Bing might not have agreed with the tone of this question, although it may have been her sense of duty in regard to day-to-day organisation, in addition to her sensitivity to the concerns of her friends and colleagues, which stopped her from producing the elaborate oeuvre she may have had in mind. However, one must be careful not to judge history by the contemporary standards of academic careerism and consider the intrinsic value of this human way of standing in the world, which characterised Gertrud Bing, and in which she had found peace.204 Gertrud Bing was neither the saint nor the martyr, which male colleagues or advocates of feminism might want to portray in their biographies. With the foresight that typified her as a 28-year-old doctoral student, she freely chose to accept the unfreedom of her fate, found the courage not to be dominated by restrictive fascist and patriarchal ideologies, chose to be an arbeitende Frau and found a certain amount of peace in this, which she emanated and which lives on in the memory of those who knew her during her lifetime. In my opinion, then, Edna Purdie is not entirely wrong in quoting the following sentence from Lessing’s Nathan der Weise to characterise Bing: “‘So sagte der bescheidne Richter’. The adjective, with its twofold implication of wisdom and modesty, seems strikingly appropriate to Gertrud Bing.”205

1.5. From Phantom to Muse. Concluding Remarks Gertrud Bing died on 3 July 1964, after being hospitalised a month earlier, on June 2, due to sudden illness. We know little about the end of her life, just as her birth and early childhood are shrouded in mystery. Michael Baxandall’s memory does not extend beyond the parting before a risky drive to Dulwich: [A] final shaming failure is that I cannot remember anything about the talk on the last evening spent with her, just before the illness from which she died. She had come up to Hampstead and left rather late, certainly after one, to drive back to Dulwich. All her friends were uneasy about Bing and the motor car: fortunately, she was the sort of bad driver other drivers spot a mile off and avoid. But I was a little anxious when I took her out to her car, since she had drunk a fair amount. She would not stay the night. Somehow we set off her car alarm, a new-fangled thing neither of us knew how to turn off, and it took time and the pressing help of neighbors before she left for Dulwich, which she safely reached. I was unnerved, she was not.206

This is how she vanished before the eyes of Michael Baxandall on a dark spring night. Has Gertrud Bing, phantom and “animating spirit of the Warburg Institute”207, eluded us again? Having reached this part of my essay, I have demonstrated that Gertrud Bing, as Aby Warburg’s personal assistant, played a decisive role in the founding and later survival of the K.B.W., in its capacity as The Warburg Institute. By now, it will have become clear to the reader that surprisingly little is known about this remarkable woman. “Warburg, notre fantôme: quelque part en nous, mais en nous insaisissable, inconnu,”208 wrote Georges Didi-Huberman. This characterisation is perhaps even more applicable to Gertrud Bing herself. Her contribution to the success of her male colleagues seems to have overshadowed her own intellectual project. What is clear is that for many, Bing is indeed a phantom, which to this day roams in the further development of Warburg’s legacy, a phantom that may occasionally come haunt us, but whose very essence seems elusive.

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For many, however, Gertrud Bing was also Warburgs muze 209, the ninfa egeria modernissima 210 or the incarnation of a dynamic force that sets people in motion through inspiration and friendship. Gertrud Bing was, in any case, a multifaceted person. As a philosopher and literary scholar (1.1.) she was a key component of the functioning of the Warburg trinity on the personal and professional level (1.2.). As a Jewish scholar in exile (1.3.), she did not resign herself to her bitter fate and resolutely chose the path of the berufstätige Frau (1.4.). More than anything else, one can read her life as a struggle with the fatum and as a quest to find freedom in the beautiful, the true and, above all, the good. Has the phantom finally shown itself, has it emerged out of the shadows into the light? Now that Bing’s biography has been sketched, one indeed has the impression that Warburg’s muse is racing towards us across history, into the light of recollection and memory. Warburg widmete seine Bibliothek Mnemosyne, der Mutter der Musen. Gertrud Bing hätte wohl gelacht, wenn man sie mit einer Muse verglichen hätte, und doch drückt dieser Vergleich etwas Wesentliches aus. Sie stand anderen zur Seite und wußte sie zu inspirieren. Obwohl sie vielleicht auf den allerersten Augenblick nüchtern wirken konnte, war sie wirklich musisch, mit tiefer Liebe für die Musik und für manche Maler, vor allem wohl für Tizian, Rembrandt und Velasquez.211

In the eyes of many feminists, it is repugnant to describe a woman merely as a muse. If Gertrud Bing was indeed the musical212 muse that Gombrich sees in her, then she was, first and foremost, a “thinking muse”213, who, as a gifted philosopher and cultural scientist, broke out of the passive role in which society wanted to lock her up as a muse. Is Gertrud Bing the mother of the muses, or a phantom that comes to haunt us? By now, it will have become clear that if one wants to understand Warburg’s legacy, Bing cannot be ignored. Understanding Bing is only possible when one goes beyond the ephemera of an external reflection and search for what brings her back to life again, the anima of her own intellectual legacy. This is the subject matter of the next part.

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Ernst H. Gombrich, Gertrud Bing zum Gedenken, in Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunstsammlungen, 10, 1965, p. 7-12, p. 11. Gertrud Bing. Obituary, in The Times, 6 July 1964, in Obituaries from the Times 1961-1970, ed. Frank C. Roberts, Reading, 1975, p. 76; Gertrud Bing, in Die Zeit, 29, 17 July 1964; In Memoriam Gertrud Bing. 1892-1964, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 27, 1964, [p. 1-2]; Carl Georg Heise, Gertrud Bing + 3 juli 1964, in Kunstchronik, 17, 1964, p. 258-259; The Warburg Institute (ed.), Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), London, 1965; Werner Gramberg, In Memoriam Gertrud Bing, in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 11, 4, 1965, p. 293-295; Gombrich, Gertrud Bing, o.c. Michael Baxandall, Is Durability Itself Not Also a Moral Quality?, in Common Knowledge, 18, 1, 2012, p. 22-31, p. 23. According to Dorothea McEwan, this happened at Gertrud Bing’s request. Dorothea McEwan, Fritz Saxl. Eine Biografie. Aby Warburgs Bibliothekar und erster Direktor des Londoner Warburg Institutes, Vienna, 2012, p. 121. Perdita Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, muss man (auch nicht) schreiben. Die Korrespondenz von Gertrud Bing mit Freunden und Kollegen, in Auf unsicherem Terrain. Briefschreiben im Exil, eds. Hiltrud Häntzschel, et al., Munich, 2013, p. 110-120, p. 116. Included in Erwin Panofsky, Korrespondenz 1910-1968. Band 3: Korrespondenz 1950 bis 1956, ed. Dieter Wuttke, Wiesbaden, 2006, p. 689. Gertrud Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen bei Lessing. Ein Beitrag zum geistesgeschichtlichen Problem Leibniz-Lessing, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Hamburg, 1921. Bing, Lebenslauf, in Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c. Denkt man zurück an ihre frühe Beschäftigung mit der Frage des Verhältnisses von

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Freiheit und Notwendigkeit, so möchte man glauben, daß sie selbst in der Annahme der Forderungen der Welt und des Tages ihre große Leistung gesehen hat. Karen Michels & Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Die Literatur-und Kulturwissenschaftlerin Gertrud Bing (Hamburg, 1892-1964), in Frauen im Hamburger Kulturleben, ed. Elsbeth Weichmann Gesellschaft, Hamburg, 2002, p. 29-39, p. 34 and 38. 17 Donald James Gordon, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 11-22, p. 18-19. 18 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 52-60. 19 WIA, GC, F. Saxl to A. Warburg, 23 March 1922. McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 61. 20 Karen Michels, Aby Warburg. Im Bannkreis der Ideen, Munich, 2008, p. 90. 21 Letter from Gertrud Bing to Fritz Saxl, 4 July 1923. Kathryn Bush, Aby Warburg and the Cultural Historian Karl Lamprecht, in Art History as Cultural History. Warburg’s Projects, ed. Richard Woodfield, London-New York, 2014 (2001), p. 65-92, p. 91 n. 57. 22 Aby Warburg to Ludwig Binswanger, 18 November 1924. McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 196. 23 The first trinity being nel sigillo stesso dell’ Istituto: Mundus-Annus-Homo. Arnaldo Momigliano, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 24-28, p. 24. = Arnaldo Momigliano, Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), in Pagine Ebraiche, ed. Silvia Berti, Roma, 2016, p. 259-263, p. 259. 24 Aby Warburg, Tagebuch der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg mit Einträgen von Gertrud Bing und Fritz Saxl, (Aby Warburg. Gesammelte Schriften. Studienausgabe, VII), eds. Karen Michels & Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Berlin, 2001, p. 2. 25 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 62. 26 Thomas Meyer & Martin Treml, Gertrud Bing. Ein intellektuelles Porträt, in Trajekte, 10, 2005, p. 18-22, p. 20.

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Gertrud Bing. Obituary, o.c.; In Memoriam Gertrud Bing, 1892-1964, o.c. 28 Gombrich, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 8. 29 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 81. 30 WIA, FC, A. Warburg to M. Warburg, 22 July 1929. Quoted in Meyer & Treml, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 20. 31 Claudia Naber, ‘…die Fackel deutsch-jüdischer Geistigkeit weitertragen’. Der Hamburger Kreis um Ernst Cassirer und Aby Warburg, in Die Juden in Hamburg 1590 bis 1990. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge der Universität Hamburg zur Ausstellung ‘Vierhundert Jahre Juden in Hamburg’, ed. Arno Herzig, Hamburg, 1991, p. 393-406, p. 397. 32 Gertrud Bing wirkt calmierend, Aby Warburg writes, not without a touch of humour, on 26 March 1929 in the Tagebuch. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 425 (VII, p. 231). 33 Saxl e Bing erano da un lato meno impegnati in questa esorcizzazione di demoni che per Warburg erano stati una realtà quotidiana, ma d’altro lato erano anche meno sicuri che l’esorcizzazione fosse possibile. Momigliano, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., p. 26. = Momigliano, Pagine Ebraiche, o.c., p. 261. 34 Gordon, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., p. 19. 35 Carlo Ginzburg, Une machine à penser, in Common Knowledge, 18, 1, 2012, p. 79-85, p. 81-82. 36 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 119. 37 WIA, FC, A. Warburg to M. Warburg, 22 July 1929. Quoted in Christopher D. Johnson, Memory, Metaphor and Aby Warburg’s Atlas of Images, Ithaca, NY, 2012, p. 194. 38 Michels, Bannkreis, o.c., p. 109. 39 Marie-Anne Lescourret, Aby Warburg ou la tentation du regard, Malakoff, 2013, p. 300. 40 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 119. 41 GC, A. Warburg to F. Saxl, 11 May 1927, W /S file. Quoted in McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 119. 27

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Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 457. According to Michels, Bannkreis, o.c., p. 109. Gertrud Bing assisted in the preparation of the lecture, which was given the title Die römische Antike in der Werkstatt Ghirlandajos. Elisabeth Sears, Kenneth Clark and Gertrud Bing. Letters on the Nude, in The Burlington Magazine, 153, 1301, 2011, p. 530-531, p. 530. For more details, see chapter 7 of Johnson, Memory, o.c. “Their main goal was originally to collect material to supplement the ever-mutating Bilderatlas, which, when they left Hamburg, consisted of eighty panels and some 1,300 images.” Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 194. Emily J. Levine, PanDora, or Erwin and Dora Panofsky and the Private History of Ideas, in Journal of Modern History, 83, 4, 2011, p. 753-787, p. 772 n.88. Carl Georg Heise, Persönliche Erinnerungen an Aby Warburg, ed. and comm. Björn Biester & Hans-Michael Schäfer, Wiesbaden, 2005, p. 56. WIA, GC, A. Warburg to T. Cassirer, 6 March 1929; WIA, FC, A. Warburg to M. Warburg, 22 July 1929; Thomas Meyer, Aus einem Espace Autre des Archivs. Gertrud Bing an die Cassirers, Florenz 1. Juni 1929, in Trajekte, 10, 5, 2005, p. 15-17. Quand il est à Hambourg, Aby passe plus de temps à la bibliothèque, avec celle dont il a fait son assistante en 1927, qu’avec sa famille, sa femme. Ainsi naît ce qui, dans une lettre d’Aby à Mary du 18 septembre 1927, devient ‘le cas Bing’. Les enfants s’en émeuvent. Ils s’inquiètent qu’Aby n’évoque les affaires familiales avec Bing. Ils souhaiteraient même qu’il stoppe toute relation avec elle. Mais, dit Warburg, Bing prend soin de lui, mieux que sa famille, avec laquelle il serait sur le point de rompre. Lescourret, Aby Warburg, o.c., p. 298. Il ressort également de ses remarques à Mary qu’à cela s’ajoute son égotisme constitutif,

of muses and phantoms exacerbé durant ses années d’internement et toujours tenace, qui lui donne le sentiment qu’on – et surtout ses proches – ne s’occupe jamais assez de lui, qu’on ne lui accorde jamais assez d’importance et de reconnaissance. Or le fait est que, et du propre aveu de Gertrud Bing, celle-ci lui a apporté et l’admiration et le dévouement quasi sacrificiel qu’il exige de chacun. Lescourret, Aby Warburg, o.c., p. 298-299. 52 Arnaldo Momigliano, On Pagans, Jews, and Christians, Middletown, CT, 1987, p. 92. 53 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 361. 54 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 367. 55 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 455. 56 Aby Warburg, Mit Bing in Rom, Neapel, Capri und Italien. Auf den Spuren einer ungewöhnliche Reise, ed. Karen Michels, Hamburg, 22010, p. 12 and p. 119-120. 57 WIA, GC, G. Bing to R. Wittkower and Mrs. Wittkower, 12 December 1929. 58 WIA, G. Bing to Mrs. Bachrach, 2 December 1929. 59 See for example WIA, G. Bing to A. Berend, 14 December 1929. 60 WIA, GC, G. Bing to M. Gütschow, 18 December 1929. 61 WIA, G. Bing to M. Joseph, 12 December 1929. 62 WIA, 103.6. G. Bing to F. Saxl. Quoted from Kurt W. Forster, Introduction, in Aby Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity. Contributions to the Cultural History of the European Renaissance, ed. Gertrud Bing, trans. David Britt, Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999, p. 1-75, p. 46 n. 142. 63 Cf. Emily J. Levine, Dreamland of Humanists. Warburg, Cassirer, Panofsky, and the Hamburg School, Chicago IL, 2013, p. 275-276. 64 Heise, Persönliche Erinnerungen, o.c., p. 12. 65 Momigliano, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., p. 25. = Momigliano, Pagine Ebraiche, o.c., p. 260.

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66 Heise, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 258. 67 Aby M. Warburg, Die Erneuerung der heidnischen Antike. Kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen Renaissance, (A. Warburg. Gesammelte Schriften, 1-2), ed. Gertrud Bing, in collaboration with Fritz Rougemont, 2 vol., Leipzig-Berlin, 1932. 68 WIA, GC, C.G. Heise to G. Bing, 16 May 1939. Quoted from Heise, Persönliche Erinnerungen, o.c., p. 104-105. 69 WIA, GC, C.G. Heise to G. Bing, 11 April 1946. Quoted from Heise, Persönliche Erinnerungen, o.c., p. 105. 70 Heise, Persönliche Erinnerungen, o.c., p. 104-106. 71 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 10. 72 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 16. 73 Bettina Götz, College Bing und Fräulein Doktor, in Denkräume zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft. 5. Kunsthistorikerinnentagung in Hamburg 1991, eds. Silvia Baumgart, et al., Berlin, 1993, p. 19-26, p. 20. 74 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 201 (IV p. 63). 75 Götz, College Bing, o.c., p. 20. 76 Fritz Saxl, The History of Warburg’s Library (1886-1944), in Ernst H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, 21986 (1970), p. 325338, p. 331. 77 Momigliano, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., 1965, p. 25. = Momigliano, Pagine Ebraiche, o.c., p. 260-261. 78 Gertrud Bing, Foreword, in Lectures. F. Saxl, ed. Gertrud Bing, London, 1957, s.p. 79 Gertrud Bing, Fritz Saxl (1890-1948). A Memoir, in Fritz Saxl (1890-1948). A Volume of Memorial Essays from his Friends in England, ed. Donald James Gordon, London, 1957, p. 1-46. 80 Enriqueta Frankfort, Bing, Gertrud (1892-1964), in rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004; http:// www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31887 (accessed 4.10.2017).

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the fortune of gertrud bing (-) Lee Sorensen, Bing, Gertrud, in Dictionary of Art historians (website); http:// www.arthistorians.info/bingg (accessed 4.10.2017). McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 17. McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 120. Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 76 n. 17 refers to the indirect allusions to the intricate relationship between Warburg, Saxl and Bing in the correspondence between Saxl and Warburg. See Aby M. Warburg & Fritz Saxl, ‘Wanderstraßen der Kultur’. Die Aby Warburg-Fritz Saxl Korrespondenz 1920 bis 1929, ed. Dorothea McEwan, Munich-Hamburg, 2004. Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 76 n. 17. Meyer, Aus einem Espace, o.c., p. 15-17. Letter now in the private archive of Prof. John Michael Krois. Meyer & Treml, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 20. 162 East Dulwich Grove, London SE 22. McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 191. Meyer & Treml, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 22. Frankfort, Bing, Gertrud, o.c. Braxandall, Is Durability, o.c., p. 24. Phyllis Pray Bober, A Life of Learning. Charles Homer Haskins Lecture for 1995 (American Council of Learned Societies Occasional Paper, No. 30), 29 April 1995; www.collegeart.org/pdf/PhyllisPrayBober.pdf (accessed 15.03.2018). McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 193. WIA, GC, G. Bing to T. Cassirer, 27 August 1948. Meyer & Treml, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 22. Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, o.c., p. 115. Erwin Panofsky, Korrespondenz 1910 bis 1968, Band 2. Korrespondenz 1937 bis 1949, ed. Dieter Wuttke, Wiesbaden, 2003, p. 920. WIA, Gertrud Bing Papers, Box 4, G. Bing to E. and W. Solmitz, 2 August 1948. Quoted from Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, o.c., p. 115. Like most of Warburg’s associates: “In addition to Ernst Cassirer, ‘Warburg’

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scholars Erwin Panofsky, Fritz Saxl, Gertrud Bing, Hans Liebeschütz, Walter Solmitz, Paul Ruben, Richard Salomon, and Edgar Wind were all registered with Hamburg’s Jewish community.” Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 345 n.67. Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 160. Ina S. Lorenz, Die jüdische Gemeinde Hamburg 1860-1943. Kaiserreich – Weimarer Republik – NS-Staat, in Zerstörte Geschichte. Vierhundert Jahre jüdisches Leben in Hamburg, ed. Ina Lorenz, Hamburg, 2005, p. 129-171, p. 156. = reprint from Arno Herzig (ed.), Die Juden in Hamburg 1590 bis 1990. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge der Universität Hamburg zur Ausstellung ‘Vierhundert Jahre Juden in Hamburg’, Hamburg, 1991, p. 77-100. Cf. Töchter wohlhabender Eltern besuchten private, christliche Mädchenschulen mit anspruchsvollerem Bildungsangebot. Ursula Randt, Zur Geschichte des jüdischen Schulwesens in Hamburg (ca. 1780-1942), in Die Juden in Hamburg 1590 bis 1990. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge der Universität Hamburg zur Ausstellung ‘Vierhundert Jahre Juden in Hamburg’, ed. Arno Herzig, Hamburg, 1991, p. 113-130, p. 122. Heinz Mosche Graupe, Die Entstehung des modernen Judentums. Geistesgeschichte der deutschen Juden 1650-1942, Hamburg, 2 1977, p. 347. Lorenz, Die jüdische Gemeinde Hamburg, o.c., p. 129-132. Lorenz, Die jüdische Gemeinde Hamburg, o.c., p. 136-137. See also p. 132: Die eigentliche Kernaussage des Hamburger Systems lag in der rechtlichen, organisatorischen und sogar mitgliedschaftlichen Selbständigkeit der Kultusverbände. Es stand jedem Gemeindemitglied frei, sich einem der Kultusverbände anzuschließen; verpflichtet war es hierzu nicht. (…) Dass man in nichtreligiöser Form Angehöriger einer jüdischen Gemeinde sein konnte, war ohne Frage eine kühne Idee.

of muses and phantoms 105 During the Weimar Republic, only 40 of the Jewish citizens in Hamburg belonged to one of the three congregations mentioned here. The non-religious Jewish citizens often descended from the poorer classes. The wealthier Jewish citizens often belonged to the liberal Tempelverband. Lorenz, Die jüdische Gemeinde Hamburg, o.c., p. 150. 106 Die vierzehn kurzen Jahre der Weimarer Republik gaben den Juden reichlich Gelegenheit, ihre Bindung an Deutschtum, Deutschland und deutsche Kultur zu demonstrieren. Avraham Barkai & Paul Mendes-Flor, Aufbruch und Zerstörung (1918-1945), (Deutsch-Jüdische Geschichte in der Neuzeit, IV), ed. Michael A. Meyer, Munich, 1997, p. 154. 107 Barkai, et al., Aufbruch, o.c., p. 154-156. 108 Michels & Schoell-Glass, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 33. 109 Martin Buber, Jüdische Renaissance, in Ost und West, 1, 1901, p. 7-10. 110 Hanna Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete, kann ich auch in England oder Frankreich sein’. A Letter by Gertrud Bing to Hanns Swarzenski of May 1933, in The afterlife of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg. The emigration and the early years of the Warburg Institute in London, (Vorträge aus dem Warburg-Haus, 12), eds. Uwe Fleckner & Peter Mack, Berlin, 2015, p. 23-37, p. 25. 111 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H. Swarzenski), Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to Hanns Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933]. Quoted from Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 32. 112 See Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Aby Warburg und der Antisemitismus. Kulturwissenschaft als Geistespolitik, Frankfurt, 1998. 113 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 139-149. 114 Archiv MMW & Co, Hamburg. See the appendix in McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 285-288.

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115 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H. Swarzenski), Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to Hanns Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933]. 116 Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 23-37. 117 Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 23. 118 Jedenfalls ergibt sich für mein Gefühl für den heutigen Juden aus der Notwendigkeit, zur Aufnahme dieses Schicksals bereit zu sein auch die Notwendigkeit, sich zu seinem Schicksal zu bekennen, das heißt sich zu seinem Judentum zu bekennen. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H. Swarzenski), Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to Hanns Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933]. Quoted from Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 32. 119 Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 25-26. 120 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H. Swarzenski), Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to Hanns Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933]. Quoted from Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 32. 121 Barkai, et al., Aufbruch, o.c., p. 156. 122 “She contrasts this Deutschtümelei with her own positive idea of Germanness: the ideal of culture, education and Bildung that had been such an important part of nineteenth-century concepts of German nationhood and crucial in fostering the process of assimilation, as it transcended all differences of ethnicity and religion.” Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 28. 123 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H. Swarzenski), Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to Hanns Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933]. Quoted from Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 33. 124 The irony of her fate was heightened by the fact that Prof. Petsch, Goethe

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128 129 130 131 132 133

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the fortune of gertrud bing (-) specialist and promoter of her dissertation, turned out to be an active member of the NSDAP, and was consequentially removed from his position by the British authorities in May 1945. Cf. Christa Hempel-Küter, Germanistik zwischen 1925 und 1955. Studien zur Welt der Wissenschaft am Beispiel von Hans Pyritz, Berlin, 2000, p. 155. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H. Swarzenski), Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to Hanns Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933]. Quoted from Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 33. Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 29. WIA, GC, G. Bing to H. Swarzenski, 9 September 1936. Quoted from Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 209 n. 42. McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 145-153. McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 162ff. McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 164.184-185. WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1, Envelope 1. Hamburg Abmeldung. McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 162. WIA, GC, G. Bing to E. Cassirer, 24 April 1936. Quoted from Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, o.c., p. 113. Gertrud Bing. Obituary, o.c.; Heise, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 258; Gramberg, In Memoriam, o.c., p. 294. Cf. McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 175; Gombrich, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 9. Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, o.c., p. 113. Frankfort, Bing, Gertrud, o.c. WIA, GC, G. Bing to E. Simpson, 27 January 1936. Published in Dorothea McEwan, A Tale of One Institute and Two Cities: The Warburg Institute, in GermanSpeaking Exiles in Great Britain, ed. Ian Wallace, (The Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies), Amsterdam-New York, 1999, p. 25–42, p. 31-33.

138 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 161. 139 Gramberg, In Memoriam, o.c., p. 294. 140 WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1, Envelope 1, Naturalisation Certificate (September 1946). 141 S.n., In Memoriam Gertrud Bing. 18921964, o.c.; Gramberg, In Memoriam, o.c., p. 295; Gombrich, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 10; Heise, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 258. 142 Gertrud Bing. Obituary, o.c. 143 Baxandall, Is Durability, o.c., p. 27. 144 Gertrud Bing, Aby M. Warburg. Vortrag von Frau Professor Bing anlässslich der feierlichen Aufstellung von Aby Warburgs Büste in der Hamburger Kunsthalle am 31. Oktober 1958 mit einer vorausgehenden Ansprache von Senator Dr. Hans H. Biermann-Ratjen, Hamburg, 1958, p. 12. = Aby M. Warburg. Ausgewählte Schriften und Würdigungen, ed. Dieter Wuttke, Baden-Baden, 1980, p. 455-464. 145 Aby Warburg. Vortrag von Gertrud Bing [1958], in Aby M. Warburg. Ausgewählte Schriften und Würdigungen, ed. Dieter Wuttke, Baden-Baden, 1980, p. 455-464, p. 464. 146 Meyer & Treml, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 22. 147 WIA, Gertrud Bing Papers, Box 4, G. Bing to W. Solmitz, 4 December 1957 [sic]. Quoted from Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, o.c., p. 116-117. 148 Götz, College Bing, o.c., p. 22. 149 Steven M. Lowenstein, Paul MendesFlor, Peter Pulzer & Monika Richarz, Umstrittene Integration 1871-1918, (Deutsch-Jüdische Geschichte in der Neuzeit, III), Munich, 1997, p. 84-85. 150 Götz, College Bing, o.c., p. 22-24. 151 Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 160. 152 Lescourret, Aby Warburg, o.c., p. 301. 153 Lescourret, Aby Warburg, o.c., p. 301. 154 Michels & Schoell-Glass, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 29. 155 Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 62. 156 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 114 (III, p. 13).

of muses and phantoms 157 WIA, Gertrud Bing Papers, Box 4, G. Bing to E. and W. Solmitz, 9 December 1945. Quoted from Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, o.c., p. 114. 158 Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, o.c., p. 114. 159 Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 160-161. 160 Gertrud Bing, Personen- und Sachverzeichnis, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1923-24, Leipzig-Berlin, 1926, p. 252-277; Ead., Personen- und Sachverzeichnis, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1924-25, Leipzig-Berlin, 1927, p. 345f.; Ead., Personen- und Sachverzeichnis, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1925-26, Leipzig-Berlin, 1928, p. 203f.; Ead., Personen- und Sachverzeichnis, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1926-27, LeipzigBerlin, 1930, p. 209f. 161 Cf. Yvette Marcus-De Groot, Kunsthistorische vrouwen van weleer. De eerste generatie in Nederland voor 1921, Hilversum, 2003, p. 126. 162 Cf. Lescourret, Aby Warburg, o.c., p. 301. 163 Baxandall, Is Durability, o.c., p. 24. 164 Frances A. Yates, The Valois tapestries, ed. Gertrud Bing, London, 1999 (1959), p. x. 165 Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory, (Frances A. Yates. Selected Works, III), London-New York, 2007 (1966), p. xiv. 166 Karen Michels, Glück im Unglück? Kunsthistorikerinnen im Exil, in Grenzen Überschreiten. Frauen, Kunst und Exil, eds. Ursula Hudson-Wiedemann & Beate Schmiedel-Falkenberg, Würzburg, 2005, p. 123-130, p. 124. 167 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 508. 168 Michels, Glück, o.c., p 124. 169 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 186. 170 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 189. 171 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 291. Cf. Michels, Glück, o.c., p. 124. 172 Levine, PanDora, o.c., p. 770-772; Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 162. 173 Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 162. 174 Levine, PanDora, o.c., p. 771. 175 Levine, PanDora, o.c., p. 771.

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176 20 February 1927. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 75. 177 31 December 1926; 12 and 16 April 1927; May 1927; 9 and 11 June 1927; 7 July 1927; 7 September 1927. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 40, 82, 83, 88, 98, 99, 100-101, 112, 140. 178 25 June 1927. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 103. 179 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 121. 180 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 58, 63 and 66. 181 April 1927. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 81. 182 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 117. 183 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 273. 184 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 345. 185 Levine, PanDora, o.c., p. 771-772; Michels, Glück, o.c., p. 125. 186 Michels, Glück, o.c., p. 126. 187 Female biographers are not necessarily kinder to women. By way of illustration, consider the following passage by MarieAnne Lescourret, commenting on Bing’s appearance: Assez grande, les jambes lourdes sous les bas de coton, les yeux noirs et proéminents derrière des lunettes rondes métalliques, la mèche sombre et plate en biais sur le front, le menton légèrement prognathe, mise sans élégance, Gertrud Bing semble une incarnation du ‘bas-bleu’. Sur les photos, entre Saxl et Warburg, même en virée avec ce dernier en Italie, elle garde son sérieux. (…) Rien dans son apparence ne laisse penser qu’elle aura pu être l’enjeu d’une rivalité masculine entre Fritz Saxl (…) et Aby Warburg, dont le goût pour les femmes est établi. Lescourret, Aby Warburg, o.c., p. 298-299. 188 Ernst H. Gombrich, Introduction, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 1-3, p. 2. 189 Gertrud Bing. Obituary, o.c. 190 Heise, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 259. 191 Gombrich, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 7 en 9. 192 In memoriam Gertrud Bing. 1892-1964, o.c. 193 Gramberg, In Memoriam, o.c., p. 294.

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the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

194 J. M. C. Toynbee & Stephen L. Dyson, Strong [née Sellers], Eugénie (1860–1943), in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004; https://doi. org/10.1093/ref:odnb/36352 (accessed 23.3.2018). 195 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 449. 196 Cf. Michels, Glück, o.c., p. 126. 197 Cf. Traute Hoffmann, Der erste deutsche Zonta-Club. Auf den Spuren ausssergewöhnlicher Frauen, Hamburg-Munich, 2002, 43-50. 198 Michels, Glück, o.c., p. 127. 199 Baxandall, Is Durability, o.c., p. 24. 200 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 190. 201 Edna Purdie, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1965), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 29-30, p. 29. 202 Frankfort, Bing, Gertrud, o.c. Bings stern demeanour actually frightened Gordon: “But if Saxl alarmed me, Bing frightened me. She was the image of severity: in what seemed a recognizable way; dark cropped hair, the endless cigarettes, the dark austere clothes, the use of surnames, her quickness, the sharpness of her questions.” Gordon, in Gertrud Bing (18921964), o.c., p. 17. 203 Ulrike Wendland, Bing, Gertrud(e), in Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil. Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler, ed. Ulrike Wendland, Munich, 1999, vol. 1, p. 58. 204 She considered her profession vielmehr als selbstgewählten und selbstbestimmten Ort. Götz, College Bing, o.c., p. 22. 205 Purdie, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., p. 30. 206 Baxandall, Is Durability, o.c., p. 27. 207 Gertrud Bing. Obituary, o.c.

208 Georges Didi-Huberman, L’image survivante. Histoire de l’art et temps des fantômes selon Aby Warburg, Paris, 2002, p. 28-30. 209 Marcus-De groot, Kunsthistorische vrouwen, o.c., p. 126. 210 Delio Cantimori, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 6-10, p. 8. 211 Gombrich, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 11. 212 Bing’s love for music was noticed by several colleagues and friends. Edna Purdie talks about her love for Schubert and Mahler (Purdie, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., p. 29-30.). Ernst Gombrich mentions her youthful ambition to become a singer (Gombrich, Introduction, o.c., p. 2.). Her musicality may also explain her friendship with the composer and conductor Otto Klemperer, who wrote a short in memoriam on the occasion of her death (Otto Klemperer, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 23.) 213 Cf. “The Thinking Muse, which signifies at once ‘source of inspiration’ and ‘thinker,’ marks a radical shift in the traditional philosophical separation between muse, female, and thinker, male. The muses, invoked by philosophers even prior to the time of Socrates as the source of philosophic inspiration, have been traditionally posited as the ‘other,’ forever outside the activity of philosophizing. Portrayed as muses but not as philosophers, women have been assumed by the Western tradition to be those who do not, or ought not, think.” Jeffner Allen & Iris Marion Young (eds.), The Thinking Muse. Feminism and Modern French Philosophy, Indianopolis, IN, 1989, p. 1.

II. Truth and the Capriciousness of Fortune

 Ich weiss (...) dass Sie Ihre neuen grossen Erlebnisse sich nicht mehr in dem Licht seiner [i.e. Warburgs] Deutung und in der leidenschaftlichen Kraft seines Verständnisses wiedererstehen lassen können. Diese ‚mnemische‘ Wiederholung durch die unter der Leitung seiner geistigen Durchdringung, Ordnung in das Chaos eines Gefühlserlebnisses brachte, die einem zeigte, wo man stand, während es sonst drohte, wirbelnd über einen hinwegzugehen, das ist es auch, was ich so unbeschreiblich entbehre. Es gibt keinen anderen Menschen, der einen so zur Selbstbesinnung verhelfen konnte, wie er, der sich die Klarheit selbst immer wieder aus soviel Dunkelheiten und Anfechtungen heraus abgerungen hat. Gertrud Bing in a letter to Isabella von Eckardt. WIA, GC, G. Bing to I. von Eckardt, 14 December 1929.

Fig. 9. Fortuna Inconstans, designed by Philips Galle (1537-1612) and engraved by Jan Collaert II (ca. 1561-ca. 1620). Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, inv. RP-P-1963-160

I

In the 1920s and 1930s, Gertrud Bing found herself in turbulent waters, both in her personal and professional life. During the Weimar Republic she wrote her dissertation on fate in the writings of Leibniz and Lessing under Petsch and Cassirer. It was a heavy topic for a young doctoral student, but the subject nevertheless proved prophetic for the period in which she lived. In 1928-1929 she accompanied the temperamental Aby Warburg on his last journey through Italy. Both of them became acquainted with, among other things, the paganism that went through a revival under Mussolini’s fascist regime. Back in Hamburg, four years after the personal catastrophe of Warburg’s death, Bing also had to cope with the growing anti-Semitism and the rise in power of the National Socialists in 1933. Fatum also literally plunged Bing into turbulent waters when the contents of the Warburg library were shipped to London by the steamship Hermia in December 1933. In London, Bing’s fate only seemed to stabilise after the Second World War when she became a British citizen in 1946. However, her Sehnsucht for the Heimat never disappeared. During these turbulent decades, Fortuna continued to guide Gertrud Bing in the intellectual domain as well. Bing was fascinated by the way in which the individual struggles with fate, and tries to stand firm in the whirlwind of irrational forces that threaten to overwhelm him/her. In the visual arts, these forces, which are often experienced as inconsistent, come together in the figure of Fortuna (fig. 9). Like the ninfa, she is the embodiment of movement. In the visual culture of the Renaissance, she meanders through the sea, while the wind plays freely with her untied hair, sometimes with a sail that she carries like a mast. As a wind goddess or queen of the sea, she ultimately remains elusive. Capricious, she balances on a globe. This blind fate is both positive and negative and brings with it, in seemingly arbitrary ways, sometimes prosperity and sometimes disaster. Bing’s reflections on fate and Fortuna took place during the two most dramatic decades of her life. Bing initially approached the human struggle with

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fate as an ethico-religious phenomenon (2.1.). Through her collaboration with Aby Warburg, the cosmological proportions of this fatum became clear to her (2.2). In addition, both Warburg and Bing examined the relationship between individual human existence and this fatum (2.3.). As a result of her intellectual dialogue with Fritz Saxl, the theatrical dimension of fate eventually came to the forefront again (2.4.).

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2.1. Overwhelmed by Fate. On Blind Passion, Rationality and Mysticism

Wangel langsam. Du bist dem Meer verwandt. Ellida Das ist auch das Grauenvolle. Wangel Und das Grauenvolle wiederum ist Dir verwandt. Du schreckst ab und ziehst an. Henrik Ibsen, Die Frau vom Meere (Fruen fra havet, 1888).

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At the beginning of Gertrud Bing’s academic career, the theme of fate presents itself in a mainly abstract form. It is not Fortuna, but the concept of das Notwendige that is the subject of her thesis from 1921. Her supervisor was Robert Petsch, fully named Ferdinand August Robert Petsch (1875-1945)214, who was known for his studies on Goethe’s Faust.215 Bing, however, seemed to elaborate on the theme, which Petsch developed at the beginning of his career, in a publication on Freiheit und Notwendigkeit in Schillers Dramen (1905)216, which she also mentioned in the bibliography of her thesis. Her co-supervisor was the well-known Jewish-German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), with whom Bing forged personal ties in the years following the defence of her dissertation. She regularly gave him suggestions for literature and stayed in contact with him after the Cassirer couple left Hamburg in 1933.217 Bing’s dissertation is about the relationship between necessity (Notwendigkeit) and freedom, which she researches first in the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and secondly in the aesthetics and in the philosophy of history and religion of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) (fig. 10). Bing supplements her general philosophical analysis with a study of two plays by Lessing: Emilia Galotti (1772) and Nathan der Weise (1779). Her thesis, which she defended at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Hamburg, is therefore an interdisciplinary work, since it integrates the philosophical and literary disciplines.218 Bing’s thesis, Der Begriff des Notwendigen bei Lessing. Ein Beitrag zum geistesgeschichtlichen Problem Leibniz-Lessing, contains 133 pages with an addendum of 10 pages, and remained unpublished. Bing begins her research with a study of das Notwendige in Leibniz’s work (p. 1-18), after which she focuses on an exposition of Lessing’s aesthetics (p. 19-43) and Lessing’s philosophy of history and religion (p. 44-100). In a final section, she examines two plays by Lessing: Emilia Galotti (1772) (pp. 101-122) and Nathan der Weise (1779) (pp. 123-132). Bing’s aim is not only to examine the degree to which Lessing was influenced by Leibniz, but also to investigate how Lessing’s plays implicitly convey an art theory, in which the artist acts as a creative genius in order to bring his artwork in line with a lawful order that exists in the world. Both the characters in Emilia Galotti and the titular character in Nathan der Weise struggle with the determinism of a lawful world order. It is only in the surrender to fate that these characters find their freedom. In addition to Determinismus, Schicksal is one of

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Fig. 10. Anna Rosina Lisiewska de Gasc (1713-1783), Portrait of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, ca. 1767-1768. Halberstadt, Gleimhaus

the central terms in the dissertation. In this respect, the young Bing already subscribes to the fascination of the Warburg school for the figure of Fortuna. Lessing had a formative influence on Gertrud Bing219 and, if one is to believe Edna Purdie, this was no coincidence: Of all the classical German writers (and she knew them well), he [i.e. Lessing] seemed the one who was most clearly a formative influence. There was an affinity, which may well have stimulated her choice in the first instance and in turn contributed to her whole outlook upon life. The difficult interlocking of tolerance and intolerance, of freedom and order, the intricate processes of supporting feeling by reason and informing reason with feeling – such problems, so often latent or manifest in Lessing’s writings, were problems of which she had an immediate apprehension, as one apprehends things to which one is by nature attuned.220

In this description, too, the balancing act between freedom and restraint and between emotion and reason already comes to the fore. The passage confirms the previous characterisation of Gertrud Bing as a rational equilibrium artist.

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In any case, the theme of her dissertation continued to influence her later intellectual and personal life. When Bing had just been employed at the K.B.W., Fritz Saxl gave her a book on Lessing, for which she thanked him by letter as follows: Vielen Dank für das Lessing-Buch, das sehr komisch und katholisch (…) ist.221 A few years later, Erwin Panofsky encouraged her to further develop her expertise in Lessing. In the following letter from Bing to Warburg, however, it becomes clear why time for this was often lacking. Ich hoffe so sehr, daß ich bis zum Winter die Bibliothek ganz in Ordnung habe, sodaß ich weniger mit der technischen Durcharbeitung zu tun haben werde, und mich mehr und in produktiver Weise als bisher an ihrer inneren Ausgestaltung und Weiterbildung beteiligen kann. Auch Lessing soll dann sicher drankommen. Sogar Panofsky, der kürzlich durch Zufall meine Arbeit gelesen hat, ermutigte mich sehr zu einer ‘Rettung’ des Lessing’schen Kunsttheorie, die in der heutigen Forschung seiner Meinung nach so mißverstanden wird.222

In his reply to this letter, Aby Warburg readily expressed his support and encouraged her to order literature about Lessing. He proposed that in the semester of 1928-1929, the K.B.W. would organise a commemoration event in honour of the bicentenary of Lessing’s birth.223 To the best of my knowledge, Bing was never able to realise these ambitions. In her dissertation, Bing investigates the determinism of Lessing in light of Leibniz’s theory of the Monad. According to Leibniz, the lawfulness in creation is connected to the creating God himself who acts out of a moralische Notwendigkeit, according to die Wahl des Besten.224 As God’s Abbild, the human being with its endliche Geist is under the obligation to repeat this free choice of God.225 Die Aufgabe des Ich ist das Streben nach immer neuen Vollkommenheiten226 and this aspiration unfolds within the context of intellectual and ethical laws that underpin the whole of creation.227 According to Bing, Lessing thinks along the line of similar fixed principles, and this is apparent both in his aesthetics and in his philosophy of religion. Lessing’s aesthetics starts from the idea that the particular, which is expressed in a work of art, is a mirror of the eternal, or in other words, of das Gesetz. The spatial and temporal position of this particular in the cosmos profoundly determines its appearance, due to the fact that the notwendige Grundform in the work of art, which is connected to the general truth, is always expressed

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in historical fashion. As a creative genius, the artist, in his/her turn, reflects the creating God and creates a world unto itself, die eine höhere Notwendigkeit beanspruchen kann. The aspiration of the artist, then, is to create a possible world that is as truth-conforming as possible.228 The more precisely the genius attunes his/her artistic creation to the general law, the more convincing the work of art will seem to the observer.229 Prior to investigating the extent to which Lessing himself, as an artist, viz. as a playwright, translated these principles into practice, Bing devotes a great deal of attention to his philosophy of religion.230 This is required to frame the ethical position of the human being, which is a trademark of Lessing’s theatre work. In ethical action, too, human beings must orient themselves towards a general law, which, incidentally, also characterises their deepest being. Bing concludes the third chapter of her dissertation as follows: Im moralischen Handeln zeigt jeder Mensch die Grundstruktur seines Wesens, die eine immanente Gesetzmässigkeit ist. Er stellt sich am besten dar, wenn er vollkommen gesetzmassig erscheint: erst die Consequenz im Handeln, die Grundsätze machen den Mann zum Mann. Er ist gebunden, weil alles, was aus ihm entsteht, in strenger Gesetzmässigkeit entsteht; er ist frei, weil es ins Gesetz seines eignen Wesens ist, dem er folgt. Dadurch ist er in gleicher Weise vor Willkür wie vor Zwang bewahrt.231

In the first three chapters, Bing sets out the aesthetic and ethical framework under which she will discuss Lessing’s plays. Arbitrariness and coercion, freedom and restraint are key concepts. All of this also gives an immediate impression of the existential gravitas of Bing’s research. In the dissertation one discerns the traces of a cathartic process. The tone of the first three chapters is heavy and follows a meticulous scientific logic, with mathematic clarity. This philosophical part clearly requires the utmost concentration from the reader, who cannot afford to let her/his attention slip for even a moment. One can imagine that the writing of this part must have been demanding as well, not only in a philosophical, but also in a mentally arduous sense. In the strongly restrained writing style that Gertrud Bing practices here, one can feel that she utilises all her reasoning capabilities to fathom the question that occupies her: the relationship of human beings with the Notwendigkeit.

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Her writing takes on a different tone in the final two chapters, due to inter alia, the subject matter at hand – literature as an art form, and more specifically theatre – but also because of Bing’s relationship with this subject matter. Bing realises that the heavy intellectual and ethical burden of a deterministic world can be made more digestible and bearable through art. At the end of the second chapter, when she describes Lessing’s aesthetics in relation to the art form of theatre, she already includes a clear reference to this outlook. Wir müssen uns also an die Stelle des Helden versetzen können. Je näher er uns steht, desto stärker werden wir der Wirkung seines Schicksals unterliegen, (…) desto heftiger werden uns Furcht und Mitleid ergreifen. Äussere Schicksale sind zufällig; das des Helden braucht nicht das meine zu sein. Seine Trauer aber, seine Liebe, seine Ahnung, sein Verlangen sind mein eigenes Leben. Die künstlerische Darstellung wirkt, indem sie verwandte Saiten in mir tönen lässt. Das Auswirken der inneren, auf den Menschen bezogen, der persönlichen Gesetzmässigkeit schafft im Genie das Kunstwerk, bildet den Gegenstand der Darstellung und garantiert durch seine Nacherlebenbarkeit die Wirkung. Schöpfer, Produkt und Betrachter schliessen sich unter diesem Gesichtspunkt zusammen.232

The tone of this passage already reveals a glimpse of Bing’s enthusiasm for theatre. In the identification with the emotional world of the hero, the spectators are brought to a reliving of their own experiences with fate. In this way, the playwright, theatre work and the spectator participate in the same struggle with, and orientation towards, das Notwendige. In the final two chapters, Bing further develops her theory by analysing two plays: Emilia Galotti (1772)233 and Nathan der Weise (1779)234. Bing deliberately chooses to examine the concrete work of art as such. Die beiden Dramen vervollständigen den Begriff des Notwendigen besser als eine Erörterung über den Determinismus es tun könnte.235 Emilia Galotti is a passionate play, in which human instincts and divine providence drive the actions of the characters on an unconscious level.236 Fate presents itself as dark and blind, the human being is ignorant and in the grip of unconscious forces. Emilia Galotti depicts a kind of lack of human freedom; the enslavement to desire.237

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In Nathan, Lessing devises another solution to the problem of man’s confrontation with the Notwendige. Bing clearly has a personal preference for this play. In the last pages of her dissertation, she even abandons her hitherto highly objective style in order to express her personal opinion explicitly with the help of a few ‘ich-sentences’. For example: Aber es ist kein Zufall, dass der Mann Lessing die schönste Formulierung seiner Ueberzeugung in der praktischen Darstellung einer Verkörperung gefunden hat. Deshalb fühle ich mich auch berechtigt, mit dem Nathan wie mit einem Höhepunkt abzuschliessen.238 In this context, the formulation der Mann Lessing should be interpreted literally, i.e., in a personal sense. Bing situates the conception of the play against the backdrop of Lessing’s own life and suffering at the time.239 Her phrasing implies an almost interpersonal involvement in this context. Er scheinen mir zwei Ströme aus dem persönlichen Leben Lessings sich in das Stück ergossen zu haben.240 The genius draws from his own life to attune the artwork to the lawful, eternal truth. In addition to the personal aspect, Bing also wants to highlight the religious core of the play, which, in her opinion, is not often mentioned in other discussions of Lessing’s theatrical work.241 Nathan not only embodies the transition from irrationality to rationality – from blinder Zufall and triebhafte Handlung to self-knowledge and self-control242 – but also transcends the rational level, adopting a religious, even mystical, life stance. After self-control comes religious surrender. Nathan has freed himself from the unconscious drives that controlled him, and has achieved full awareness and rationality. In this phase, too, he remains unfree; he is fully aware of his lack of freedom. The religious surrender that follows this awareness occurs entirely in accordance with Nathan’s own free will, even though this surrender consists precisely in beinahe vollständigen Bruch des Eigenwillens.243 Gertrud Bing concludes her dissertation with the following powerful passage: Der Mensch aber, der sich durch seine Bewusstheit über diese Stufe erhoben hat, ist darum noch nicht frei. Trotzdem unterliegt er nicht, weil er erkennt. Er sieht sein Schicksal und nimmt es auf sich. Er leidet, und zugleich will er sein Leiden, nicht aus Martyrium, sondern aus Einsicht. Durch die Unterwerfung unter das Gesetz seines Lebens überwindet er es.244

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In this paradoxical submission, Bing finds the solution to the problem that preoccupied her. Emilia Galotti and Nathan are each other’s polar opposites, and the confrontation between the two results in a catharsis. The contrast between destructive irrational passions and the paradoxical victory in rational surrender, represents a polarity that one also encounters in the oeuvre of Warburg. The Auseinandersetzung between these antipodes provides the spectator with insight into his/her own experiences with fate. One cannot shake off the impression that the clear solution reached by Bing at the end of her dissertation was the result of a personal, deeply human experience with the overwhelming power of fate. Mediated through art, in this case theatre, these experiences become bearable, digestible, and dissolve. One can only guess at the specific existential roots of Bing’s intellectual quest. What kind of experiences from her own life has she, in her own words, poured (ergossen) into her dissertation? The early death of her parents? Or, akin to Warburg’s psychological battles, the catastrophic outcome of World War I? It is a question one cannot answer. In any case, it is striking that Bing’s description of Nathan’s mystico-religious life stance is strongly reminiscent of the description given by Friedrich Nietzsche in his Ecce homo. Meine Formel für die Grösse am Menschen ist amor fati: dass man Nichts anders haben will, vorwärts nicht, rückwärts nicht, in alle Ewigkeit nicht. Das Nothwendige nicht bloss ertragen, noch weniger verhehlen – aller Idealismus ist Verlogenheit vor dem Nothwendigen –, sondern es lieben…245

Accepting one’s fate on religious grounds, as expressed in Lessing’s Nathan, becomes amor fati for Nietzsche; the loving acceptance of one’s fate. Bing uses this terminology – amor fati – when, at the end of her life, she looks back on Warburg’s fate and specifically his relationship to his Jewish identity. Er hatte seine eigene Antwort auf die Frage, wodurch sich die Juden von ihren Gastvölkern unterscheiden: ‘Wir sind zweitausend Jahre länger Patienten der Weltgeschichte gewesen’. Mehr war nicht daran; aber wer Warburgs Diktion kennt, für den ist es nicht schwer, in dieser Formulierung den sprachlichen Zusammenhang zwischen ‘Patient’ und ‘Passion’ herauszuhören: Amor fati.246

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This choice to use the expression amor fati is no coincidence. Das Schicksal was central to Warburg’s thinking247 and the thinking of the group of researchers that surrounded him248. The study of Fortuna in Francesco Sassettis letztwillige Verfügung (1907)249 constituted a Wendepunkt 250 in his research. Neither is it a coincidence that Schicksal was one of the key terms in Warburg’s last notes from 1929. In a notebook that he gave the title Methode, he wrote down Nietzsche on the second page and the words Schluss, Flucht and Schicksal on the third page. The other pages remained blank.251 Bing’s aforementioned comment teaches us that in Warburg’s case, too, the reflection on fatum cannot be separated from concrete life experiences. Wir sind zweitausend Jahre länger Patienten der Weltgeschichte gewesen. This remark certainly impressed Bing. In a letter to Hanns Swarzenski on 29 May 1933252, she linked Warburg’s statement to her own fate: Jedenfalls ergibt sich für mein Gefühl den heutigen Juden aus der Notwendigkeit, zur Aufnahme dieses Schicksals bereit zu sein auch die Notwendigkeit, sich zu seinem Schiksal zu bekennen, das heißt sich zu seinem Judentum zu bekennen. […D]ie Geschichte lehrt, daß der Leidensweg des ewigen Juden immer wieder angetreten werden muß, und die einzige Rettung, die der einzelne dabei finden kann, ist, daß er sich über den stolzen Fluch des Ausgesondertseins, dem er untersteht, klar ist, daß er ihn bejaht, und daß er die konsequenz daraus zieht.253 More than a decade later, after her transforming journey through Italy with Warburg in 1928-1929, Bing was confronted again with the central philosophy of her dissertation.254 Because of her own personal struggle she had now acquired an inner understanding of Warburg’s struggle with fate, and felt connected to him. In any case, the new Dr. Bing entered the 1920s after having experienced a personal catharsis. In Nathan’s mystico-religious life stance she found a way out of an oppressive problem. Unlike in a play, however, a catharsis in real life offers no guarantee of lasting existential stability. Das Gesetz, whether divine or not, continues to exert its control over life. Even if the individual will is strong, fate does not follow a linear pattern. With the call to amor fati comes Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence. Human beings need to face the challenges that life throws at

them again and again.255 This incessant confrontation can have an overwhelming and debilitating impact. In Warburg’s imaginative world, the crippling experience of an overwhelming fatum is depicted by the character of the Flußgott (see 2.3). The quest to achieve distance from this overwhelming fatum proves to be a challenge for both Warburg and Bing. As described below, Warburg and Bing were looking for a way to break open and transcend this claustrophobic universe. But can a shipwreck be prevented at all? Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.256 Does Nietzsche’s ominous nihilism have the final say in Bing’s life, as well?

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2.2. Die Genese des Idealraums. A Cosmic Breakthrough

Wangel sieht sie eine Weile an. Ellida, – Dein Inneres ist wie das Meer. Es hat Ebbe und Flut. Woher ist die Wandlung gekommen? Henrik Ibsen, Die Frau vom Meere, 1888.

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Warburg and Bing definitely did not stare too long into Nietzsche’s abyss. On the contrary, during their journey through Italy in 1928-1929, their gaze was directed upwards. They both wanted to investigate how the cosmos figured in the representations of the Renaissance man who tried to transcend himself. On 14 October 1928, at the beginning of the journey, Warburg summarised the subject as follows: Die Eindrucksverarbeitungen, die College Bing und ich seit einem Jahr erleben, scheinen doch ein Leitmotiv zu haben die Genese des Idealraums aus subjektiver einzelpersönlicher Steigerung als Phänomen zu sammeln und später einzuordnen.257

On 3 November, Bing interpreted this statement in the light of the Auseinandersetzung between the individual and the Pneuma: Jetzt (Perugia 3.XI) kann man hinzufügen: nachzuweisen am Substrat der kosmologischen und weltlichen Bilderkreise, wo dieser Idealraum durch bewegendes und ergreifendes Pneuma (einerseits) und durch sammelnde und konsolidierende Individualbetonung (andrerseits) entsteht.258

Bing and Warburg initially went in search of tangible traces of this transformation in the cosmological representations of the Renaissance.259 In Bologna, the first stop on their journey, the sculpted ceiling of the anatomical theatre immediately attracted their attention260 (fig. 11). Bing herself became more and more interested in these decorated ceilings. In Rome she wrote enthusiastically: Ich werde doch das große Buch über die italienische Deckenmalerei schreiben müssen! Warburg responded encouragingly: Nichts wie los! 261 In Italy it seems as if Bing and Warburg literally wanted to travel through the Denkraum262 that they tried to capture in their research projects. Their itinerant thought process will, indeed, crystallise as a Denkraum in the Mnemosyne atlas on which they worked during the journey, which may have gradually unfolded itself to them as a shifting constellation.263 Their intellectual travelling companion was Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)264, whose work Warburg and Bing planned to read on 14 October 1928.265 Bing’s contribution was so substantial that “the figures of Gertrud Bing and Giordano Bruno begin to converge in Warburg’s mind”. In Warburg’s notes,

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Fig. 11. Detail of the sculpted ceiling of the Teatro Anatomico dell’Archiginnasio in Bologna. Bologna, Archivio storico dell’Università di Bologna

the abbreviation G.B. stands for both266 (fig. 12). Warburg wrote the following about their collaboration: Gertrud Bing und ich funktionieren – rückblickend – wie eine zwiefach gegabelte Wünschelrute die sich im Pneuma (...) neigt, sobald sich in der Sphäre der bildhaften Prägung Zwang ‘ad inferos’ in die Tiefe oder ‘Raptus in Coelum’ kündet (offenbart).267

The Warburg-Bing dowsing-rod is at its closest during the conclusion of their journey in Naples, where they visit the church of Bruno, San Domenico, and in Capua where they descend ad inferos to visit the Mithraeum268 (fig. 13). Paradoxically, there turns out to be a connection between Mithras and Giordano Bruno. The blood-drenched sacrifice of the bull in the cult of Mithras has cosmic significances that relate to the ascension, the raptus in coelum of the Renaissance man. Bruno’s oeuvre and the cult of Mithras both revolve around the sun. The sol invictus is the cultic centre of Mithraism and heliotropism is the focal point of Bruno’s writings. In other words, Bing and Warburg are on eine Expedition

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Fig. 12. Outer cover of Aby Warburg’s spring back folder for his notes on Giordano Bruno with an inserted photograph of Aby Warburg and Gertrud Bing on the balcony of their Roman hotel in November 1928. London, The Warburg Institute Archive

zu den unbekannten Quellen des Heliotropismus.269 As their guiding star, Giordano Bruno embodies “a flight from shadowy fear toward a heroic ‘Auffahrt’”.270 In his writings, Giordano Bruno fights against superstition and astrology. He breaks open the predetermined medieval cosmos, as it were. Warburg described

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Fig. 13. Fresco depicting the tauroctony. Capua, Mithraeum of the Santa Maria Capua Vetere

Bruno’s achievement as follows: Giordano Bruno behandelt den Himmelsglobus wie ein Theater, in dem Logenschließer Plätze anweist, nachdem er schon die kosmischen Sphaerenschalen auf ewig zersprengt hat.271 What kind of moral and intellectual quality enabled Bruno to break open this cosmos and rearrange it? A new philosophical concept presents itself by way of explanation; synderesis, “a mystical form of ethical intuition that as ‘conscience’ or ‘will’ can balance the competing claims of ‘emotion’ and reason’”.272 It is precisely Gertrud Bing, Johnson suggests, who discovered this concept when she marked the following passage in the German edition of Bruno’s Gli eroici furori: Der ‘Oberst’ aller Triebe und Gedanken ist der menschliche Wille, er steht auf dem Hinterdeck des Lebenschiffes, mit dem Steuerruder der Vernunft lenkt er die inneren seelischen Triebe und Gefühle durch alle Wogen der äusseren Wechselfälle und Verhältnisse.273

This description closely aligns with one of the representations of Fortuna that I will discuss below (see 3.3.). Bing annotated the passage with Sinteresis / siehe

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Fig. 14. Gertrud Bing sitting before Warburg's panel design at the Palace Hotel in Rome, 1929. London, The Warburg Institute Archive

/ ed. Gentile / II, p.13. n.2274 and in so doing referred to a passage from Bruno’s Spaccio, which was commented on by Gentile. Here, Bruno describes how Jove purifies the temple after receiving inspiration through the light of the synderesis. “Prompted by his conscience or synderesis, Jove resolves to purge the ‘celestial temple’ of the Triumphant Beast, who represents ignorance, superstition, greed, and similar vices.”275 The cosmos as theatre, the helmsman, and the temple. These are representations that will re-emerge when I further explore Bing’s understanding of Fortuna. In Italy, Bing completely absorbed the Denkraum that unfolded itself to the travelling pair. In a letter to his brother Max, dated 22 July 1929, Warburg looked back on Bing’s achievements with satisfaction and was pleased to report dass Frl. Dr. Bing nun zum ersten mal wirklich an das bildhafte Element gebracht, in bewundernswerter Weise die ganze Kunstwelt in sich aufzunehmen und als Welt der inneren Fragen sich einzuverseelen im Stande war.276 Bing has wholly appropriated this mental world by absorbing it, swallowing it, making it part of her own soul277 (einzuverseelen) to a point where she almost carries the Denkraum within herself (fig. 14). It is in this freshly discovered representation of the cosmos that Bing oriented herself as a person and as a scholar. But how does this affect the individual? How does the individual relate to the cosmos? How does Bing navigate this inner Denkraum?

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2.3. Fortuna and the Existential Struggle of the Individual

Ellida Ach, begreifst Du denn nicht, daß die Wandlung gekommen ist, – daß die Wandlung kommen mußte – in dem Augenblick, da ich in Freiheit wählen durfte? Wangel Und das Unbekannte, – das lockt und zieht Dich nicht mehr? Ellida Weder zieht es mich an, noch schreckt es mich ab. Ich hätte ins Unbekannte hinein schauen – hätte hinein gehen können, – wenn ich selbst nur gewollt hätte. Ich hätte es ja doch wählen können. Und darum konnte ich auch darauf verzichten. Henrik Ibsen, Die Frau vom Meere, 1888.

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During their Italian journey, Warburg and Bing studied not only the cosmos, but also the individual.278 More specifically, they examined the life stance that the individual adopts in this transformed cosmos. The ideas they both developed on this subject initially revolved around Manet279, but Fortuna had a place in their reflection process as well. In Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863), the vertical movements of Aufstieg and descending ad inferos in the predominantly horizontal representation reach a resting point, and this can almost be taken literally (fig. 15). Enjoying some time off, the nineteenth-century characters rest on the grass, where they enjoy a picnic. The antique composition that lives on in this painting, has reached a resting point in Manet’s work. The reclining figures in the grass are reminiscent of a depiction of the ancient Flußgötter in an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi, The Judgement of Paris (ca. 1530, presumably after Raphael), which was itself inspired by a depiction on an ancient sarcophagus.280

Fig. 15. Éduard Manet (1832-1883), Déjeuner sur l’herbe, 1863. Paris, Musée d’Orsay

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The Flußgötter on Raimondi’s engraving react phobically and passionately to the apotheosis of the Olympic gods in the background. It is an event that seems to paralyse them.281 Things are very different for Manet’s picnicers, Warburg wrote on 20 March 1929: Energetische Inversion im außern Ruhezustand: die Flußgötter können sich verehrungsgebunden nicht aufrichten, die (…) Frühstücker wollen es nicht: ‘lazy people, die Katharsis der Acedia.282 The characters in Manet’s painting have the free choice to rest, the river gods do not. A few days later, on 3 April, Warburg linked this to the manic-depressive polarity that he was researching.283 The fatalism of the depicted sixteenth-century river gods, he stated on 4 April, is absent in Manet’s Déjeuner: das Wesentliche der energetischen Inversion bei Manet: energetisch umkehrende Sinngebung des Lagernden, der aus Symbol des passiven Fatalismus zum optimistisch innerlich aufgerichteten Cyniker wird.284 The fatalism of the past has been transformed into a purified cynicism. Warburg’s well-known statement about the relationship between vita activa and vita contemplativa, which he wrote in the same period, also emerged from this research on Manet. This passage is typical of Warburg’s approach to the place of the individual in the newly designed cosmos. In a cosmos seemingly liberated from superstition and oppression, the individual navigates between depression and mania. This schizophrenia is the fate of the Western world, claims Warburg in this often-quoted note of 3 April 1929: Manchmal kommt es mir vor, als ob ich als Psychohistoriker die Schizophrenie des Abendländes aus dem Bildhaften in selbstbiographischen Reflex abzulesen versuche: die ekstatische Nymphe (manisch) einerseits und der trauernde Flußgott (depressiv) andrerseits als Pole zwischen denen der treuformend eindrucksempfindliche seinen tätigen Stil zu finden versucht. Das alte Contrasto-Spiel: Vita activa und vita contemplativa.285

This existential oscillation between vita activa and vita contemplativa, which externalises itself throughout history in various form, has a spatial connotation for Warburg as well. His good friend Franz Boll drew his attention to the curious etymology of the verb contemplare, which is derived from the noun templum. Contemplating then means den heiligen Bezirk auf der Erde und am Himmel mit dem Blick umfassen.286 The influence of this etymological interpretation can be traced to a note from Warburg on 14 February 1924: ‘Contemplation’: Die

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Bannung des Monströsen durch imaginäre Bindung an die Tektonik des Tempels.287 This concisely formulated line of thought has a strong affinity with the abovementioned quote from Bruno’s Spaccio that Bing and Warburg will discover a few years later, which deals with the purification of the temple by Jove. In a similar way, the polarity between vita activa and vita contemplativa structures the reflection on Fortuna, as is crystallised in Tafel 48 of the Mnemosyne atlas (fig. 16). On this panel, Warburg and Bing288 depicted the struggle of the individual with the forces of time. Bing, who wrote the headings for the atlas289, gave the following title to Tafel 48: Fortuna. Auseinandersetzungssymbol des sich befreienden Menschen (Kaufmann)290. In this contribution I lack the room to interpret the rich multifaceted visual material of the Mnemosyne atlas.291 The very way in which Tafel 48 is structured, already carries meaning. In the left-hand column one finds the depictions of Fortuna with wheel (a), in the middle those with Fortuna at sea, carrying a sail (b) and in the right-hand column those of Fortuna with the forelock (c), i.e., depictions of the hybrid figure Fortuna-Occasio.292 However, this schematic grouping should not be read in a linear fashion from left to right, as if expressing an ascending movement, starting with medieval determinism – symbolised by the wheel of Fortuna – and ending (and culminating) in the so-called liberation of the individual – symbolised by FortunaOccasio who is aggressively caught by the forelock, in the way she is depicted on a medal with the inscription Velis nolisve, for example. Gertrud Bing encountered such a violent depiction during the Italian journey, which she described in the following manner on 24 March 1929: Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne (Bau von Peruzzi) unter den Stucchi von Giovanni da Udine eine Fortuna mit Schopf und geflügelte Füssen die dies mal von dem energischem Man neben ihr kräftig gepackt wird. (Im Gegensatz zu der im Palazzo Ruspoli).293 For Warburg and Bing, this final representation does not depict the end of an evolution, but on the contrary a violent outburst that needs to be mediated. The three-part structure of Tafel 48 should therefore not be interpreted as a straight line from a to b to c, but as a pendulum movement between the two extremes (a and c) and the representation of the Auseinandersetzung in the middle (b).294 In this structure, Warburg’s conclusion about Fortuna in his Francesco Sassetti’s letztwillige Verfügung (1907) lives on in tangible fashion: sie funktioniert bei Rucellai wie bei Sassetti in gleichem Sinne als plastische

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Fig. 16. Tafel 48 from the Mnemosyne Bilderatlas. From: Aby Warburg. Der Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, eds. Martin Warnke & Claudia Brink, (Gesammelte Schriften. Aby Warburg, 2, II, 1 ed. Horst Bredekamp, et al.), Berlin, 2008

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Ausgleichsformel zwischen ‘mittelalterlichem’ Gottvertrauen und dem Selbstvertrauen des Renaissancemenschen.295 Through the mediation of the figure of Fortuna, both Sassetti and Rucellai navigate between two extremes: they steer a middle course that runs between blind faith in God and a self-satisfied belief in the individual. The zone in the middle is therefore the place where the Ausgleichsformel unfolds itself. This centre field belongs to the Kaufmann, the “merchant adventurer”296, who neither sits back and admires his achievements, nor has total control over his fate.297 The cosmos in which this merchant exists, although cracked open (3.2.), is still a regulated cosmos: “this panel shows how in the late Renaissance the ability to alter all contingencies in fact remains heavily under Fortuna’s sway.”298 In an attempt to deal with this unreliable power of fate, the merchant thus navigates between two extremes: the passive attitude of the accidia, as depicted in the 1530 London drawing by Cornelis Anthonisz Theunissen, and the active attitude of aggressively seizing Fortuna-Occasio by the forelock. In Marsilio Ficino’s letter to Giovanni Rucellai, Warburg found a third attitude to deal with the fickleness of Fortuna.299 One cannot fight Fortuna, nor can one escape her. All one can do is bow to her will. The merchant who chooses Fortuna with the sail as his emblem, immerses himself in this figure, places his soul in Fortuna, as it were, and recognises in her a portrayal of his own emotional tension300 (fig. 9). Captured in Warburgian terminology, the life stance of this merchant can be described as Distanzierung: eine Zurücktreten vom Greifen zum Begriff, von der Handlung zum Symbol.301 In the introduction to Mnemosyne, which Warburg dictated to Bing in 1929, this attitude is presented as the core feature of the Schicksal of Western civilisation.302 Warburg thus made the struggle of the Renaissance merchant the subject of his intellectual meanderings, sometimes quite literally. Just as the members of the Medici family used to start their commercial contracts with the heading Col nome di Dio e di Buonaventura 303, Warburg and Bing gave their own explorations a similar dynamic by opting for a similar heading in the Tagebuch: Nel nome di Dio e di Buona Ventura! 304 In this way, a scientific project from the beginning of the 20th century was placed under the auspices of a Renaissance proverb. Does the pendulum movement between trust in God and self-confidence, between passivity and activity, ever come to a close? In two reproductions on Tafel 48, the struggle with Fortuna’s ambiguity seems to have ended in a gentle

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reconciliation: in the works of Bronzino and Reni there seems to be no trace left of the crippling fear experienced in the confrontation with Fortuna.305 In Bronzino’s Allegoria della Fortuna (1567), Fortuna embodies “a stable state of society”.306 In Reni’s Fortuna (1623) one finds perhaps the most loving reconciliation between apathy and an aggressive seizing.307 Still, this painting by Reni is by no means the resting point of Tafel 48. The constellation of the panel is too volatile, its subject too fickle. According to Warburg, Fortuna ranked among the Kopfjägerin.308 The resting point in Reni’s painting lasts only a moment, as well. What the future holds remains uncertain: “it is still ambiguous whether she [i.e. Fortuna] will come bearing a platter of fruit or a head on a platter.”309 When Warburg and Bing assembled Tafel 48, Fortuna remained for them, too, the capricious wind goddess of the seafaring nations, with a robe that might flutter even more fiercely on the open sea than that of the Ninfa.310 Mapping out the ambiguity of human experience in confrontation with fate was precisely their intention.311 With the help of the Mnemosyne atlas, Bing and Warburg orientated themselves in the mindscape of humanity. Moreover, Tafel 48 depicts the orientation of man in the cosmos itself, specifically in relation to Fortuna. The map with which man tries to orient himself also becomes, as in the myth of Atlas, the weight that man has to carry. When human beings contemplate their fates in full freedom, they must accept their responsibility, make a choice, and act. This answer can take the form of the allegory of love, like in the work of Reni, or of Ellida’s reply in the Ibsen play that I quoted above, but it can just as well slip into a passive surrender to magic, or into a hyperrational greifen. Magie und Logik, das Doppelantlitz der Antike, das zum Schiksal der europäische Kultur geworden ist, Bing wrote in her Vortrag from 1958.312 On the river of time, the image of Fortuna breaks through the surface as a symptom. It expresses the bipolarity of Western fate, which knows no resting point. If the future is uncertain and the lawful order erratic, how can one find truth in this apparent relativity? How can the question of truth be asked at all? I discuss Gertrud Bing’s answers to these questions in the next section.

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2.4. Veritas or Fortuna in the Theatre of Time

Wangel Ich fange an, Dich zu verstehen – nach und nach. Du denkst und empfindest in Bildern – und in sichtbaren Vorstellungen. Dein Sehnsuchtsdrang nach dem Meer, – jenes Etwas, das Dich lockend hinzog zu ihm, – dem fremden Manne, – das war der Ausdruck für den Freiheitstrieb, der in Dir erwacht und gewachsen war. Nichts andres. Henrik Ibsen, Die Frau vom Meere, 1888.

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Gertrud Bing developed her views on fate in continuous dialogue with other scholars. Initially, Lessing was her inspiration, later Aby Warburg. As his assistant, towards the end of the 1920s, she collected a multitude of representations of Fortuna. In her opinion, the diversity of images was rooted in a common dynamic: “her meaning is fixed, she always stands for destiny confronting individual worth.”313 A few years after fate radically changed Bing’s own life, in 1937, she again reflected on Fortuna in her new home town, London. Where Warburg had been her conversation partner in the previous decade, she now developed her ideas in dialogue with Fritz Saxl. Bing focused on the various strategies that individuals develop in the confrontation with fate, and on the assessment of their moral truthfulness. In 1936 Saxl wrote a contribution for Philosophy and History, the Festschrift in honour of Cassirers 60th birthday.314 Gertrud Bing assisted with the translation into English.315 With the title Veritas filia Temporis, Saxl chose one of the most suitable expressions to explore truth in relation to philosophy and history, in an iconological way. He considered this expression in the light of personal, religious, political and scientific developments. The expression ‘Truth is the daughter of Time’ can be rendered as ‘honesty will pay in the long run’, ‘the truth will eventually come to light’. The idea that truth can ‘come to light’ is Greek, while the connection of truth with the personification of Time, i.e. Saturn, is Roman.316 In a Neoplatonic framework, this transition from darkness to light is an ascending movement. It is therefore not surprising that, when this proverb is expressed in the visual medium, a composition is often chosen in which the vertical line dominates. In sixteenth-century emblematics, Saturn lifts Veritas from an abyss into the sky, while she is besieged by an opponent.317 This theme, as depicted on several sixteenth-century woodcarvings that were created in a cultural context dominated by Protestantism, shows similarities with the iconography of Christ (instead of Time) who descends to dark limbo where he frees Adam (instead of Veritas) and leads him to the light.318 When Poussin elaborated this theme in the context of the Counter-Reformation, in a painting commissioned by Cardinal Richelieu, he iconographically linked the composition to the ascension.319 Just like Bing and Warburg, Saxl studied – in a certain sense – the Idealraum that began to take shape in the Renaissance, which expressed itself in a dynamic, ascending movement.

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When Bernini tackled the iconographic theme, he added a new dimension to it. Truth is ‘unveiled’ and now takes on a more active role. “Veritas sets her foot on the globe and turns her eyes towards the approaching figure of Time. Her unveiling and her active detachment from the earth are made visible.”320 The ascending Truth321 now embodies, as it were, the vertical movement of the ascent itself. In this way, the focus gradually slips away from Truth as immersed in the play of cosmic forces, in her conflict with Time, to Truth as a personal agent engaged in the emancipation of oppressive forces. In 1937, one year after the publication of the Cassirer Festschrift, Saxl himself was honoured with a collection of essays on the occasion of his 25 years of service.322 Gertrud Bing honoured Saxl with an essay with the following enigmatic title: Nugae circa Veritatem, a somewhat surprising choice that she did not elaborate on in her text. Nuga can be rendered as ‘nonsense’, the drôleries of the harlequin.323 With her ‘Frivolities about truth’ Bing apparently wanted to present a comic piece to the reader. The print Veritas filia Temporis in the Moral Filosofia (1552) of Anton Francesco Doni is the starting point (fig. 17). Unlike Saxl, she did not discuss the print from a Neoplatonic, ‘vertical’ frame of reference. She was mainly interested in the relationship between text and image, and in the self-reflection that Doni offered to the reader in this interplay of word and image. The first edition of the Moral Filosofia dates from 1552 and was published in Venice by Marcolino da Forli. With the woodcarving Veritas filia Temporis (fig. 17) the author Doni wanted to pay tribute to Marcolino, whose printer’s mark depicted this very theme.324 He went so far as to rewrite the accompanying text – an Arabic fable about ‘honesty pays in the long run’ – to make it correspond to the image. Things got really interesting when Doni, in the next editions with another publisher (1567 and 1606), chose to replace the print with a woodcarving of Fortuna and to leave the text unchanged (fig. 18). According to Bing, the interchangeability of the two representations revealed much about Doni’s understanding of Fortuna and Truth. “Luck and Truth are evasive, in their fickleness they are the handmaidens of Time. Truth is subject to deception, Luck is dependent on error and oblivion.”325 This same woodcarving (fig. 18) also illustrates a description of Fortuna in Doni’s I Marmi del Doni (1552), in which the text clearly diverges from the image.326 In the text, Fortuna is the captain of a pirate ship, who randomly

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Fig. 17. Veritas filia Temporis from Anton Francesco Doni, La Moral Filosofia (Venezia, Marcolino, 1552). From: Gertrud Bing, Nugae circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304-312, Pl. 46a

distributes her treasures to those who happen to cross her course. Human beings can only hope to jump on Fortuna’s ship at the right moment, and have no choice but to bow to her course. Not only this discrepancy between word and image, but also this description of Fortuna was striking for Bing in light of her earlier research for the Mnemosyne atlas (see 3.3.). Doni did not, in any way, describe the self-liberating Renaissance man who, in navigating between prosperity and adversity, grabs

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Fig. 18. Fortuna from La Moral Filosofia del Doni (Venezia, Bertoni, 1606). From: Gertrud Bing, Nugae circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304-312, Pl. 46b

the steering wheel himself. On the contrary, “this utter passivity Doni may claim as his own; it is the world wisdom of an unheroic nature whose minimum of security depends entirely on his own wits, and on his capacity for adapting himself to circumstances”.327 Confronted with Fortuna’s tempestuous nature, Doni ‘trimmed his sails to the wind’. In this atmosphere of opportunism, there seems to be no trace left of the original morality of the proverb Veritas filia Temporis.

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According to Doni, when confronted with the fatum, human beings can only resort to their own creativity and flexibility. “He may wear a costume, and like an actor play the part in life allotted to him by circumstances.”328 In the vain world of Fortuna’s illusions, only the master of illusion can survive. In this context, Doni attached great importance to masks, which were also often depicted on the woodcarvings for the title pages of his works (figs. 19 and 20). “The mask enables a man to put a distance between himself and the world of vanities, as an actor views the part which he plays.”329 After all, everything is just theatre, also for Doni. “[T]he stage on which he performs is only the phantasmagoria of the actual world. There is a reality behind it which sooner or later is likely to show, and then he may burn the face of hypocrisy in the fire of his genius.”330 Veritas filia Temporis. The real world will eventually show itself. Bing, in her turn, interpreted this transitory masquerade as a more frivolous way of Distanzschaffen. In the confrontation with an absurd fate, the best course of action might be to have a good laugh, and to participate in the comedy for a while. In addition to the tragic surrender of Lessing’s Nathan, Bing discovered, there is also the possibility of surrender in humour. Doni’s writings took Gertrud Bing back to the world of theatre, which already intrigued her as a woman in her early thirties when she explored the intricate themes of Lessing’s Ideendramen. Doni’s argument for jests and jokes, however, did not convert her to the comic genre, even though she herself was known for her, sometimes mocking, humour.331 Bing was a big fan of Ibsen, “to whom she had a true devotion (you would hear in the theatre the explosive ‘ach!’ that came when she was deeply moved)”.332 In her dissertation, she also discussed Lessing’s pursuit of an artistic creation that is as truth-resembling as possible. As an art form, theatre is therefore a catalyst in revealing the truth, as opposed to a frivolous flight from reality into the false world of masks and costumes. Bing ends Nugae circa Veritatem on a dramatic note. As a post-script, she discusses Leonardo’s point of view based on two Oxford drawings. Virtue and Envy, Pleasure and Pain are opposing concepts that grow out of the same body. “Leonardo realizes that it is impossible to conceive of good without its opposite.”333 A third drawing from the royal library of Windsor depicts a number of masks that melt in the sunlight or burn in the fire. Bing translated some of Leonardo’s headings that accompany this drawing: “[F]ire stands for truth,

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Fig. 19. Half-title page from Doni, La Moral Filosofia (1552). From: Gertrud Bing, Nugae circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304-312, Pl. 46c

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Fig. 20. Half-title page from Doni, La Moral Filosofia (1552). From: Gertrud Bing, Nugae circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304-312, Pl. 46d

because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and the mask stands for falsehood and lying, which conceal truth” and also “Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is of no purpose before so great a judge”.334 With this last quote, Bing concludes her essay. In the face of truth, humour is a purely cosmetic measure. The matter could not be more serious. The truth cannot be deceived, not even temporarily, not even by the best actor. Veritas filia Temporis.

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214 Hempel-Küter, Germanistik, o.c., p. 300. 215 Hempel-Küter, Germanistik, o.c., p. 143. 216 Robert Petsch, Freiheit und Notwendigkeit in Schillers Dramen, (Goethe- und Schiller-studien, 1), Munich, 1905. 217 Meyer & Treml, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 21-22. 218 Cf. Michels & Schoell-Glass, Die Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaftlerin, o.c., p. 31. 219 Unlike Meyer and Treml, I believe that the subject of Bing’s dissertation is significant to understand her later scientific project. Wollte man aus der Promotion Hinweise für Bings spätere Interessengebiete herausdestillieren, so wird man sich schwer tun. Meyer & Treml, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 21. 220 Purdie, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., p. 30. 221 WIA, GC, G. Bing to F. Saxl, 29 August 1922. 222 WIA, GC, G. Bing to A. Warburg, 5 July 1926. 223 WIA, GC, A. Warburg to G. Bing, 7 July 1926. 224 Die Wahl des Besten, die jeder Schöpfung zugrunde liegt, bedeutet nichts anderes als die moralische Gewissheit, dass die kausalgesetzlich ablaufende Natur einer Annäherung an die sittlichen Formen entgegengeht. Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 18. 225 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 14-18. 226 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 18. 227 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 14-18. 228 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 28-32. 229 [ J]e mehr diese gesetzliche Form zum Ausdruck kommt, desto mehr überzeugt uns ein Geschehen, desto notwendiger wirkt es, desto wahrscheinlicher ist es, desto algemeinere Geltung verschafft es sich. Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 31. 230 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 44-100.

231 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 100. 232 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 43. 233 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 101-122. 234 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 123-132. 235 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 131-132. 236 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 122. 237 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 132. 238 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 131. Lessing’s Nathan der Weise was, in addition, very popular with assimilated Jews in Germany because it enabled them to express their desire for religious tolerance and a universal ethics. See part I, 1.3. 239 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 130-131. 240 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 130. 241 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 130. 242 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 125. 243 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 129. It is striking how strongly Bing draws on metaphors used in the biblical and Christian tradition to elaborate this point, e.g., the parable of the seed and the different soils: Der unfreie Mensch empfängt von Gott selbst die Kraft zum wollen und zum Handeln, wenn er selbst ‘will’. Aber dieses wollen ist eben keine Aktivität, denn jede Tat ist determiniert, sondern es ist eine Bereitschaft, eine Entspannung, eine Offenheit des Herzens, das geackerte Land, das bereitet ist, den Samen zu empfangen. In dieser Willigkeit, das Schicksal seiner Unfreiheit und Schwäche auf sich zu nehmen, erreicht der Mensch seine höchste sittliche Leistung. 244 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 132.

truth and the capriciousness of fortune 245 Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce homo. Warum ich so klug bin, § 10, in Friedrich Nietzsche, Digital Critical Edition of the Complete Works and Letters, ed. G. Colli & M. Montinari, Berlin-New York, 1967-, ed. Paolo D’Iorio; http://www. nietzschesource.org/eKGWB/ EH-Klug-10 (accessed 8.6.2018). 246 Bing, Vortrag, o.c., p. 464. 247 Aby Warburg’s fascination with Fortuna is also evident from his correspondence with Alfred Doren on 31 March 1923 on the occasion of his lecture at the K.B.W. on 24 March 1923. In October of that same year, Warburg prepared a Nachtrag for this lecture, which Gertrud Bing kept in a, meanwhile lost, folder with the title Zu Fortuna Eigenes Kreuzlingen (wichtig!). (Aby M. Warburg, ‘Per monstra ad sphaeram.’ Sternglaube und Bilddeutung. Vortrag in Gedenken an Franz Boll und andere Schriften 1923 bis 1925, ed. Davide Stimili, in collaboration with Claudia Wedepohl, (Kleine Schriften des Warburg Institute London und das Warburg Archivs im Warburg Haus Hamburg, 3), Munich-Hamburg, 2008, p. 12). Warburg also wrote about Fortuna to Edwin Seligman (17 August 1927) and to Adolph Goldschmitt (11 April 1929). See: Alice Barale & Laura Squillaro (eds.), Regesto di testi inediti e rari dal Warburg Institute Archive sul tema della Fortuna, in Engramma, 92, 2011; http://www. engramma.it/eOS/index.php?id_ articolo=1651VIII (accessed 8.06.2018). The fascination with Fortuna even transcended generations. Warburg’s son, Max Adolph, also wrote a treatise on this topic: “In 1934, he received a teacher’s diploma from Hamburg University for a Latin paper analyzing the representation of the Goddess Fortuna in the arts and literature – a quintessential Aby Warburg topic.” Ron Chernow, The Warburgs. The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family, New York, 1993, p. 509.

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248 Fortuna is also a favourite subject of the Warburgian school, as demonstrated by the following publications: Alfred Doren, Fortuna im Mittelalter und in der Renaissance, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1922-23, 2, 1, 1924, p. 79-144; Ernst Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance, (Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, 10), BerlinLeipzig, 1926; Rudolf Wittkower, Patience and Chance. The Story of a Political Emblem, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 2, 1937, p. 171-177; Rudolf Wittkower, Chance, Time and Virtue, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 313-321; Erwin Panofsky, ‘Good Government or Fortune?’ The Iconography of a Newly-Discovered Composition by Rubens’, in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, lxviii, 1966, p. 307-326; Ernst H. Gombrich, The Earliest Description of Bosch’s Garden of Delight, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 30, 1967, p. 403-406, esp. p. 406. 249 Aby M. Warburg, Francesco Sassettis letztwillige Verfügung, in Kunstwissenschaftliche Beiträge August Schmarsow gewidmet, ed. Heinrich Weizsäcker, Leipzig, 1907, p. 129-152. 250 In a letter to Warburg, Saxl wrote: von da ab ist jede Arbeit immer mehr nicht bloß ein historisches, sondern ein menschliches Dokument. WIA, GC, F. Saxl to A. Warburg, 1 April 1921. Quoted in Warburg, ‘Per monstra ad sphaeram, o.c., p. 8. See also Stephanie Heremans, Warburg’s Fortuna. An Enduring Fascination and Methodological ‘Turn’, in IKON: Journal of Iconographic Studies, 13, 2020, (in press). 251 Didi-Huberman, L’image survivante, o.c., p. 506. 252 Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 31. 253 Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 32-33. 254 In my opinion, Hanna Vorholt comments correctly on this statement in light of Bing’s dissertation: “To her, the full

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the fortune of gertrud bing (-) acceptance of what was imposed upon the individual did not imply passive submission, but could be turned into an act of self-determination. (…) Bing’s emphasis on the liberating force of accepting one’s own destiny.” Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 26-27. Die Welt der Kräfte erleidet keinen Stillstand (…) Mensch! Dein ganzes Leben wird wie eine Sanduhr immer wieder umgedreht werden und immer wieder auslaufen — eine große Minute Zeit dazwischen, bis alle Bedingungen, aus denen du geworden bist, im Kreislaufe der Welt, wieder zusammenkommen. Friedrich Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente Frühjahr–Herbst 1881, 11[148], in Friedrich Nietzsche, Digital Critical Edition of the Complete Works and Letters, ed. G. Colli & M. Montinari, Berlin-New York, 1967-, ed. Paolo D’Iorio; http://www. nietzschesource.org/eKGWB/ NF-1881,11[148] (accessed 8.6.2018). Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse: § 146. Erste Veröff. 04/08/1886, in Friedrich Nietzsche, Digital Critical Edition of the Complete Works and Letters, ed. G. Colli & M. Montinari, BerlinNew York, 1967, ed. Paolo D’Iorio; http:// www.nietzschesource.org/eKGWB/ JGB-146 (accessed 8.6.2018). Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 352 (VI, p. 153). Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 352 (VI, p. 153). See also Warburg, Mit Bing, o.c., p. 37-38: Gemeint ist die moderne Vorstellung von der unendlichen Ausdehnung des Raums, die sich nach Warburgs Beobachtung in der Renaissance abzuzeichnen beginnt. Gemeinsam versucht man, Belege für diesen Vorstellungswandel zu finden, wozu auch die Decke des Anatomischen Theaters in Bologna gehört. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 345 (VI, p. 129) and p. 348 (VI, p. 137). Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 418 (VII, p. 195). It is no coincidence that

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Bing reads Apotheosis and Afterlife (1915) by Eugénie Strong in this period. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c. p. 420 (VII, p. 201). The ascension was also the subject of a lecture series at the K.B.W. in 1928-1929: see Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1928–1929, 8, Uber die Vorstellungen von der Himmelsreise der Seele. The concept of Denkraum first arises in Warburg’s text Heidnisch-antike Weissagung in Wort und Bild zu Luthers Zeiten (1920). He explains the term in light of astrology: Logik, die den Denkraum – zwischen Mensch und Objekt durch begrifflich sondernde Bezeichnung schafft, und Magie, die eben diesen Denkraum durch abergläubisch zusammenziehende – ideelle oder praktische – Verknüpfung von Mensch und Objekt wieder zerstört, beobachten wir im weissagenden Denken der Astrologie noch als einheitlich primitives Gerät, mit dem der Astrologe messen und zugleich zaubern kann. Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, o.c., II, p. 491. Marianne Schuller (Darstellung des Ungedachten. Zum konstellativen Verfahren in Aby Warburgs Mnemosyne-Atlas, in MLN, 126, 3, Constellations / Konstellationen, 2011, p. 581-589, p. 586-587) compares the Bilderatlas to the shifting constellation of a starry sky. The importance of Giordano Bruno for Bing and Warburg during their trip to Italy has been described in detail by Maurizio Ghelardi. See Aby Warburg, Miroirs de faille. A Rome avec Giordano Bruno et Eduard Manet, 1928-29, ed. Maurizio Ghelardi, trans. Sacha Zilberfarb, Paris, 2011, esp. p. 7-25 and p. 153-204. Wir mussen Giordano Bruno lesen. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 350 (VI, p. 145). In their confrontation with Bruno, they are guided by the article of Leonardo Olschki, Giordano Bruno, in Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 2, 1924, p. 1–79.

truth and the capriciousness of fortune 266 Johson, Memory, o.c., p. 219. 267 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 457 (VIII, p. 49). 268 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 456 (VIII, p. 45-47). 269 WIA, GC, A.Warburg to KBW, 21 May 1929. Quoted from Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 206-207. 270 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 215. 271 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 386 (VII, p. 75). 272 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 202-203. 273 Quoted in Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 201. 274 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 202. 275 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 203. 276 Quoted in Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 223. 277 Johnson refers in this regard to the almost ‘eucharistic’ connotations of Warburg’s description. Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 223. 278 Ernst Cassirer preceded them in this double orientation. Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos, o.c. is dedicated to Warburg. 279 Alice Barale draws attention to this second focus of the Italian journey. Alice Barale, Discesa nello spazio misterico e ‚spaccio delle tenebre‘: l‘ultimo viaggio di Warburg in Italia, in Engramma, 80, 2010: http://www.engramma.it/eOS/index. php?id_articolo=197580_barale_abstract (accessed 8.6.2018). 280 Mnemosyne Atlas 55; http://www. engramma.it/eOS/core/frontend/eos_ atlas_index.php?id_tavola=1055 281 In a text that Warburg dictated to Bing during their Italian journey, Warburg described the scene as follows: Freilich: die übermächtige Theophanie der Lichtgewalten am Himmel hat sich nicht verzogen, und die terrestrisch gebundenen, lagernden Halbgötter verdanken eben ihre ästhetisch überzeugende Eigenschwere der Prägekraft des kultischen Phobos. In den Berg und an das Flußufer gebannt richten sie sich, sehnend oder fürchtend, zu einer lichten Höhe auf, der sie nicht angehören dürfen. Ihre Augen, gänzlich absorbiert von der terriblen Gotteserscheinung, gehören

282 283

284 285 286 287 288

289

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dieser an und sprechen sehnsuchtsvoll von lastender Noch-Körperlichkeit, die eben das Schicksal der Nicht-Olympier ist. Aby Warburg, Bilderreihen und Ausstellungen, eds. Uwe Fleckner & Isabella Woldt, (Gesammelte Schriften, Zweite Abteilung, Band II. 2), Berlin, 2012, p. 373. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 422 (VII, p. 211). Bei Manet nur scheinbare Stockung. Ausdruckswertbildung Polarität des energetischen Problems Maenade von der (Kopfjägerin) bis zum sinnige Flußgott. Eigentlich die Schizophrenie im Spiegel der Stilbewegung. Manisch-depressiv die Polarität. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 429 (VII, p. 247). Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 430 (VII, p. 251). Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 429-430 (VII, 249). Warburg, Per monstra ad sphaeram, o.c., p. 25-26. WIA, III. 12.3., Bl (38). Quoted in Warburg, Per monstra ad sphaeram, o.c., p. 26. Bings active contribution to the Atlas is highlighted in a letter by Warburg: Mit Hilfe des selbstlosen Eifers von Frl. Dr. Bing ist es mir gelungen, das Material für einen Bilder-Atlas zusammenzubringen, in dem man an seinen Bilderreihen die Funktion der vorgeprägten antikisierenden Ausdruckswerte bei der Darstellung inneren und äusseren bewegten Lebens ausgebreitet sieht und der zugleich die Grundlage sein soll für die Entwicklung einer neuen Theorie der Funktion des menschlichen Bildgedächtnisses. WIA, A. Warburg to K. Vossler, 12 October 1929. Quoted from Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 221. Bing, Gertrud. WIA, III.104.1. Überschriften: Synopsis of Plates (“last version”), 1929–1930. Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 10. Notiz von Gertrud Bing according to the Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel 48, in Aby Warburg, Mnemosyne Bilderatlas, Karlsruhe, 2016, s.p.

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291 I lack room to give a detailed discussion of the line of thought that underlies this panel. A detailed analysis can be found in Fortuna nel Rinascimento. Una lettura di tavola 48 del Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, ed. Seminario Mnemosyne, in Engramma, 92, 2011; http://www. engramma.it/eOS/index.php?id_ articolo=1649 (accessed 8.6.18); Florian Fuchs, Panel 48, Guided Pathways in Mnemosyne. Meanderings through Aby Warburg’s Atlas, Cornell University, 2013; http://www.warburg.library. cornell.edu (accessed 8.6.2018); and Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel 48, o.c. 292 Fortuna nel Rinascimento, o.c.; Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel 48, o.c.; Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 106. 293 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, p. 423 (VII p. 217.) 294 Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel 48, o.c.; Fortuna nel Rinascimento, o.c. 295 Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, o.c., I, p. 151. 296 WIA, GC, A. Warburg to A. Goldschmidt, 11 April 1929. See Barale & Squillaro, Regesto, o.c. 297 Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel 48, o.c. 298 Fuchs, Panel 48, o.c. 299 Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, o.c., I, p. 148. 300 Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel 48, o.c.; Fuchs, Panel 48, o.c. 301 Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel 48, o.c. 302 [A1] Bewusstes Distanzschaffen zwischen sich und der Aussenwelt darf man wohl als Grundakt menschlicher Zivilisation bezeichnen; dieser Zwischenraum das Substrat künstlerischer Gestaltung, so sind die Vorbedingungen erfüllt, dass dieses Distanzbewusstsein zu einer sozialen Dauerfunktion werden kann die durch den Rhythmus vom Einschwingen in die Materie und Ausschwingen zur Sophrosyne jenen

303 304

305 306 307 308 309 310

Kreislauf zwischen bildhafter und zeichenmässiger Kosmologik bedeutet, deren Zulänglichkeit oder Versagen als orientierendes geistiges Instrument eben das Schicksal der menschlichen Kultur bedeutet. [A2] Dem zwischen religiöser und mathematischer Weltanschauung schwankenden künstlerischen Menschen kommt nun das Gedächtnis sowohl der Kollektivpersönlichkeit wie des Individuums in einer ganz eigentümlichen Weise zur Hilfe: nicht ohne weiteres Denkraum schaffend, wohl aber an den Grenzpolen des psychischen Verhaltens die Tendenz zur ruhigen Schau oder orgiastischen Hingabe verstärkend. Es setzt die unverlierbare Erbmasse mnemisch ein, aber nicht mit primär schützender Tendenz, sondern es greift die volle Wucht der leidenschaftlich-phobischen, im religiösen Mysterium erschütterten gläubigen Persönlichkeit im Kunstwerk mitstilbildend ein, wie andererseits aufzeichnende Wissenschaft das rhythmische Gefüge behält und weitergibt, in dem die monstra der Phantasie zu zukunftsbestimmenden Lebensführern werden. Aby Warburg, Mnemosyne. Einleitung (1929), typescript by Gertrud Bing, WIA, 102.1.1 Aby Warburg, Mnemosyne. Einleitung. Introduzione al Bilderatlas (1929), ed. and trans. Maurizio Ghelardi, in Engramma, 138, 2016; http://www. engramma.it/eOS/index.php?id_ articolo=2991 (accessed 8.6.2018). Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, o.c., I, p. 151. See for example the first page of part VIII, dated 28 April 1929. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 446 (VIII, p. 1). Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel 48, o.c.; Fuchs, Panel 48, o.c. Fuchs, Panel 48, o.c. Fuchs, Panel 48, o.c. Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 107. Johson, Memory, o.c., p. 107. Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel 48, o.c.

truth and the capriciousness of fortune 311 It is therefore not surprising that Gertrud Bing wrote the following in her foreword to the Gesammelte Schriften from 1932: Indem er (…) die Bildformen des ‘bewegten Lebens’, untersucht, gewinnt er seine Vorstellung von der psychische Polarität der Menschen dieses Übergangszeitalters, die zwischen Unterwerfung unter das Schicksal und Selbstbestimmung einen ‘charaktervollen Ausgleich’ suchten. Bing, Vorwort, o.c., p. xii. 312 Bing, Vortrag, o.c., p. 463. 313 Gertrud Bing, A.M. Warburg, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 28, 1965, p. 299-313, p. 310. 314 In a series of essays collected under the title Philosophy and History, the editors Klibansky and Paton, together with the various authors, pay tribute to Ernst Cassirer’s central research topic; the development of symbolic thinking throughout cultural history. The Warburg school is prominently present in this collection, with texts written by Panofsky and Wind, in addition to Saxl’s contribution. In their foreword, the editors justify the diversity of contributions by means of a quote from Nicholas Cusanus, who is incidentally one of the central figures in Cassirers Individuum und Kosmos from 1927: Una veritas in variis signis varie resplendit. (Philosophy and History. The Ernst Cassirer Festschrift, eds. Raymond Klibansky & Herbert J. Paton, New York-London, 1963 (1936), p. vii-viii). 315 Fritz Saxl, Veritas Filia Temporis, in Philosophy and History. The Ernst Cassirer Festschrift, eds. Raymond Klibansky & Herbert J. Paton, New York-London, 1963, (1936), p. 197-222, p. 197. In her memoires on Saxl, Bing stated that this text was the first work in which Saxl incorporated English sources (about Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I and Newton). Bing, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 28. 316 Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 200.

317 318 319 320 321

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323 324

325

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Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 197-202. Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 204. Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 215. Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 217. This was linked to the reception history of Psalm 84:12, which, since its depiction in the Protestant context, had been linked to the theme: veritas de terra orta est. Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 202 and 217. McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 171, n. 705: “Essays Presented to Fritz Saxl on the Completion of his 25th Year at the Warburg Institute. Dec. 1937. Typoskriptoriginal im Warburg Institute, Bibliothekssignatur CFC 365.E77ms, davon die folgenden in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1937, I: Roger Hinks, ‘Master of Animals’; Ernst Kitzinger, ‘The Story of Joseph on a Coptic Tapestry’; Ursula Hoff, ‘Meditations in Solitude’; Jean Seznec, ‘Youth, Innocence and Death’; Gertrud Bing, ‘Nugae Circa Veritatem’; Anthony Blunt, ‘Poussin’s Notes on Painting’; Ernst H. Gombrich, ‘Goethe’s ‚Zueignung‘ und Benivieni’s ‚Amore‘’; Adelheid Heimann, ‘The Six Days of Creation in a Twelfth Century Manuscript’; Francis Wormald, ‘The Crucifix and the Balance’; Enriquetta Harris, ‘Mary in the Burning Bush: Nicolas Froment’s Triptych in Aix-en-Provence’; George Clutton, ‘Two Early Representations of Lutheranism in France’; W. S. Heckscher, ‘Was this the Face ...?’; Rudolf Wittkower, ‘Chance, Time, and Virtue’; Edgar Wind, ‘Charity’; Charles Mitchell, ‘Poussin’s ,Flight into Egypt‘’.” C. T. Lewis & C. Short, A Latin Dictionary, Oxford, 1879. In a very subtle way, Doni’s tribute to Marcolino is therefore a reflection of Bing’s tribute to Saxl, who in his 1936 text took Marcolini’s printer’s mark as the starting point for his line of reasoning. Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 197-199. Gertrud Bing, Nugae circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal

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of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304312, p. 310. Or: “They are postulates of practical philosophy. The lack of discrimination which allows Truth, i.e. true merit, to become obscured by calumny and deceit, corresponds to the despotism of Fortuna. Man is powerless before the adversities of fate, and his only hope is of vindication in the course of time or by a stroke of good luck.” Fortuna is called to the tribunal to justify herself. Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 307. 326 The woodcarving depicts Fortuna, seated on a globe, blindfolded and with a billowing forelock. The public in her presence is unfavourably disposed towards her. “She sits like a defendant before the court of the disillusioned.” Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 307. 327 Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 308. 328 Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 309.

329 “The mask is Doni’s means of hiding the wounds inflicted by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. It enables him to play his rôle [sic], to transform himself into the characters which fate expects him to be.” Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 310. 330 Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 310. 331 Donald Gordon writes: “Her capacity for scorn was undiminished, though it had been increasingly linked with an appreciation of the absurd, the simply comic, in human behavior.” Gordon, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., p. 18. Otto Klemperer mentions her humour as well: Ihre grosse Hilfsbereitschaft, ihr feiner Takt und ihr Humor werden mir unvergesslich bleiben. Klemperer, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., p. 23. 332 Gordon, in Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 21. 333 Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 311. 334 Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 312.

Conclusion

 So erquicke sein Herz! Öffne den umwölkten Blick Über die tausend Quellen Neben dem Dürstenden In der Wüste! Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Harzreise im Winter, 1777.

I

The river that connects future, present and past has by now debouched into an unpredictable sea, which only Fortuna can navigate with great skill. At the end of our feminist Spurensuche, Gertrud Bing navigates the hermeneutical interspace (Zwischenraum) in her own elusive way. It is precisely this dynamic elusiveness that seems to be the driving force behind Bing’s own female agency. As a fluid character-in-connection she possesses an unparalleled energy, strong as the tides, but with the capacity to connect dispersed places, like a river. When Christopher Johnson attempts to characterise Gertrud Bing, he makes the following remarkable observation: “Colleague Bing (…) plays the supporting roles of Warburg’s memory, muse, hermeneut and (notional) nymph.”335 By way of conclusion, I would like to clarify this striking observation. Gertrud Bing took on a dynamic role in the Warburg school. Her role can indeed be compared to that of a muse who sets other people in motion through her inspiration. Bing, however, is primarily a thinking muse, Warburg’s memory, his Mnemosyne, and the first hermeneut of his work (part I). One might wonder to what extent Gertrud Bing can also be compared with the ninfa, which is central to Warburg’s research. Like Bing, nymphs are elusive, constantly mobile creatures, as Barbara Baert remarks: Die Nymphen schweben herein, überzeitlichen Phantomen gleich, deren Choreografie Vergangenheit und Gegenwart an der Grenze von Inhalt und Pathos miteinander verwebt. Zugleich innerhalb und ausserhalb stehend (…) geht von der Nymphe eine Störung aus, die Riss in der Zeit ist und seltsame Unterbrechung. Die stürmische, Leidenschaft bändigende Energie der Nymphe lässt den Strudel der Geschichte stillstehen.336

Here, the nymph emerges as a dynamic connecting figure, who surprises us with the energetic way in which she bursts into the passage of time. In a similar way,

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Gertrud Bing burst into the lives of Fritz Saxl and Aby Warburg, and with her presence she pierced boundaries that previously confined women to so-called inferior regions of personal and professional life. She was actively involved in shaping the library and the Mnemosyne atlas as Denkräume with a flexible constellation. As Göttin im Exil, she was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of The Warburg Institute (part I). Her fascination with the pendulum movement between fate and freedom culminated in a reflection on Fortuna, a fluid character with a similar dynamic as the ninfa (part II). As a dynamic nymph, as Warburg’s Fortuna, she played more than a ‘supporting role’. As a thinking muse she assisted her mentor, but also passed on his writings to future generations. Her personality had many facets, which appear and disappear successively, like the reflections of sunlight on flowing water. At the same time, her agency was fluid and raged with the power of a connecting river in the interspace. By taking on the role that fate handed to her, Bing found her freedom as a metaphorical ninfa. The search for the life and work of Gertrud Bing has plunged into a neverending sea. Leicht ist’s, folgen dem Wagen, den Fortuna führt, Goethe writes in Harzreise im Winter (1777), but it is more courageous to steer one’s own course on the perilous high seas.

335 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 219. 336 Barbara Baert, Aby Warburgs (1866-1929) ‘Nymphe’. Ein Forschungsbericht zu Motiv, Phantom und Paradigma, in Imago. Interdisziplinäres Jahrbuch für Psychoanalyse und Ästhetik, 4, 2017, p. 39-62.

Mit der dämmernden Fackel Leuchtest du ihm Durch die Furten bei Nacht, Über grundlose Wege Auf öden Gefilden, Mit dem tausendfarbigen Morgen Lachst du ins Herz ihm; Mit dem beizenden Sturm Trägst du ihn hoch empor. Winterströme stürzen vom Felsen In seine Psalmen, Und Altar des lieblichsten Danks Wird ihm des gefürchteten Gipfels Schneebehangner Scheitel, Den mit Geisterreihen Kränzten ahnende Völker. Du stehst mit unerforschtem Busen Geheimnisvoll-offenbar Über der erstaunten Welt Und schaust aus Wolken Auf ihre Reiche und Herrlichkeit, Die du aus den Adern deiner Brüder Neben dir wässerst. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Harzreise im Winter, 1777.

Illustrations Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 5.

Fig. 6. Fig. 7. Fig. 8. Fig. 9. Fig. 10. Fig. 11. Fig. 12.

Fig. 13. Fig. 14. Fig. 15. Fig. 16.

Fig. 17.

Fig. 18.

Portrait of Gertrud Bing. London, The Warburg Institute Archive Aby Warburg, ca. 1925. From: E.H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, 1986 (1970) Gertrud Bing at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, 1927. London, The Warburg Institute Archive Gertrud Bing and Aby Warburg in Orvieto, 14 March 1929. London, The Warburg Institute Archive Aby Warburg in Florence, 1898. From: Aby Warburg, Fragmente zur Ausdruckskunde, eds. Ulrich Pfisterer & Hans Christian Hönes, (Aby Warburg. Gesammelte Schriften, IV), Berlin, 2015, p. 2 Fritz Saxl in the Library at Hamburg. From: Fritz Saxl (1890-1948). A Volume of Memorial Essays from his Friends in England, ed. D.J. Gordon, London, 1957, Pl. 2 Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800-1882), Lavater and Lessing Visit Moses Mendelssohn, 1856. Berkeley, CA, Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life Eugénie Strong in the apartment on the Via Balbo in Rome, ca. 1925-1940. From: Stephen L. Dyson, Eugénie Sellers Strong. Portrait of an Archaeologist, London, 2004, Pl. 19 Fortuna Inconstans, designed by Philips Galle (1537-1612) and engraved by Jan Collaert II (ca. 1561-ca. 1620). Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, inv. RP-P-1963-160 Anna Rosina Lisiewska de Gasc (1713-1783), Portrait of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, ca. 1767-1768. Halberstadt, Gleimhaus Detail of the sculpted ceiling of the Teatro Anatomico dell’Archiginnasio in Bologna. Bologna, Archivio storico dell’Università di Bologna Outer cover of Aby Warburg’s spring back folder for his notes on Giordano Bruno with an inserted photograph of Aby Warburg and Gertrud Bing on the balcony of their Roman hotel in November 1928. London, The Warburg Institute Archive Fresco depicting the tauroctony. Capua, Mithraeum of the Santa Maria Capua Vetere Gertrud Bing sitting before Warburg’s panel design at the Palace Hotel in Rome, 1929. London, The Warburg Institute Archive Éduard Manet (1832-1883), Déjeuner sur l’herbe, 1863. Paris, Musée d’Orsay Tafel 48 from the Mnemosyne Bilderatlas. From: Aby Warburg. Der Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, eds. Martin Warnke & Claudia Brink, (Gesammelte Schriften. Aby Warburg, 2, II, 1 ed. Horst Bredekamp, et al.), Berlin, 2008 Veritas filia Temporis from Anton Francesco Doni, La Moral Filosofia (Venezia, Marcolino, 1552). From: Gertrud Bing, Nugae circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304-312, Pl. 46a Fortuna from La Moral Filosofia del Doni (Venezia, Bertoni, 1606). From: Gertrud Bing, Nugae circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304-312, Pl. 46b

98 Fig. 19.

Fig. 20.

the fortune of gertrud bing (-) Half-title page from Doni, La Moral Filosofia (1552). From: Gertrud Bing, Nugae circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304-312, Pl. 46c Half-title page from Doni, La Moral Filosofia (1552). From: Gertrud Bing, Nugae circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304-312, Pl. 46d

Bibliography Archive Material WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1, Envelope 1. Hamburg Abmeldung. WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1, Envelope 1. Naturalisation Certificate (September 1946). WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1, Envelope 2. Draft application to the Bollinger Foundation for a grant. WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1, Envelope 2. Draft of letter to Eric Warburg 2 December 1960. WIA, GC, G. Bing to F. Saxl, 29 August 1922. WIA, GC, G. Bing to A. Warburg, 14 June 1924. WIA, GC, G. Bing to A. Warburg, 5 July 1926. WIA, GC, A. Warburg to G. Bing, 7 July 1926. WIA, GC, G. Bing to Mrs. Bachrach, 2 December 1929. WIA, GC, G. Bing to M. Joseph, 12 December 1929. WIA, GC, G. Bing to A. Berend, 14 December 1929. WIA, GC, G. Bing to I. von Eckardt, 14 December 1929. WIA, GC, G. Bing to M. Gütschow, 18 December 1929. WIA, GC, G. Bing to R. Wittkower and Mrs. Wittkower, 12 December 1929. Text Editions PANOFSKY, Erwin, Korrespondenz 1910 bis 1968. Band 2: Korrespondenz 1937 bis 1949, ed. Dieter Wuttke, Wiesbaden, 2003. PANOFSKY, Erwin, Korrespondenz 1910 bis 1968. Band 3: Korrespondenz 1950 bis 1956, ed. Dieter Wuttke, Wiesbaden, 2006.

WARBURG, Aby M., Die Erneuerung der heidnischen Antike. Kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen Renaissance, (A. Warburg. Gesammelte Schriften, 1-2), ed. Gertrud Bing, in collaboration with Fritz Rougemont, 2 vols., Leipzig-Berlin, 1932. WARUBRG, Aby M., Aby M. Warburg. Ausgewählte Schriften und Würdigungen, ed. Dieter Wuttke, Baden-Baden, 1980. WARBURG, Aby M. et al., Tagebuch der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg mit Einträgen von Gertrud Bing und Fritz Saxl, (Aby Warburg. Gesammelte Schriften. Studienausgabe, VII), eds. Karen Michels & Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Berlin, 2001. WARBURG, Aby M. & Fritz SAXL, ‘Wanderstraßen der Kultur’. Die Aby WarburgFritz Saxl Korrespondenz 1920 bis 1929, ed. Dorothea McEwan, Munich-Hamburg, 2004. WARBURG, Aby M., ‘Per monstra ad sphaeram.’ Sternglaube und Bilddeutung. Vortrag in Gedenken an Franz Boll und andere Schriften 1923 bis 1925, ed. Davide Stimili, in collaboration with Claudia Wedepohl, (Kleine Schriften des Warburg Institute London und das Warburg Archivs im Warburg Haus Hamburg, 3), Munich-Hamburg, 2008. WARBURG, Aby M., Der Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, ed. Martin Warnke & Claudia Brink, (Gesammelte Schriften. Aby Warburg, 2, II, 1 ed. Horst Bredekamp, et al.), Berlin, 2008. WARBURG, Aby M., Mit Bing in Rom, Neapel, Capri und Italien. Auf den Spuren einer ungewöhnliche Reise, ed. Karen Michels, Hamburg, 22010. WARBURG, Aby M., Miroirs de faille. A Rome avec Giordano Bruno et Eduard Manet,

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1928-29, ed. Maurizio Ghelardi, trans. Sacha Zilberfarb, Paris, 2011. WARBURG, Aby M., Bilderreihen und Ausstellungen, eds. Uwe Fleckner & Isabella Woldt, (Gesammelte Schriften, Zweite Abteilung, Band II. 2), Berlin, 2012. WARBURG, Aby M., Fragmente zur Ausdruckskunde, eds. Ulrich Pfisterer & Hans Christian Hönes, (Aby Warburg. Gesammelte Schriften, IV), Berlin, 2015.

BING, Gertrud, Der Begriff des Notwendigen bei Lessing. Ein Beitrag zum geistesgeschichtlichen Problem Leibniz-Lessing, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Hamburg, 1921.

Senator Dr. Hans H. Biermann-Ratjen, Hamburg, 1958, p. 12. = Aby M. Warburg, Ausgewählte Schriften und Würdigungen, ed. Dieter Wuttke, Baden-Baden, 1980, p. 455-464. BING, Gertrud, Saxl, Fritz, in Dictionary of National Biography 1941–50, eds. L.G. Wickham Legg & E.T. Williams, London, 1959, p. 761–762. BING, Gertrud, Aby M. Warburg, in Rivista storica italiana, 72, 1, 1960, p. 100-113. BING, Gertrud, A. M. Warburg, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 28, 1965, p. 299-313. BING, Gertrud, Introduzione, in Aby Warburg, La Rinascita del Paganesimo Antico. Contributi alla storia della cultura, ed. Gertrud Bing, trans. Emma Cantimori, Firenze, 1966, p. IX-XXXI.

Publications

As Editor

BING, Gertrud, The Warburg Institute, in The Library Association Record. Fourth Series, 1, 8, 1934, p. 262-266. BING, Gertrud, Comenius in England, in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 1935. BING, Gertrud, Nugae circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304-312. BING, Gertrud, The Apocalypse Block-Books and Their Manuscript Models, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 5, 1942, p. 143-158. BING, Gertrud, Fritz Saxl (1890-1948). A Memoir, in Fritz Saxl (1890-1948). A Volume of Memorial Essays from his Friends in England, ed. Donald James Gordon, London, 1957, p. 1-46. BING, Gertrud, Aby M. Warburg. Vortrag von Frau Professor Bing anläßlich der feierlichen Aufstellung von Aby Warburgs Büste in der Hamburger Kunsthalle am 31. Oktober 1958 mit einer vorausgehenden Ansprache von

BING, Gertrud, Personen- und Sachverzeichnis, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1923-24, Leipzig-Berlin, 1926, p. 252-277. BING, Gertrud, Personen- und Sachverzeichnis, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1924-25, Leipzig-Berlin, 1927, p. 345f. BING, Gertrud, Personen- und Sachverzeichnis, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1925-26, Leipzig-Berlin, 1928, p. 203f. BING, Gertrud, Personen- und Sachverzeichnis, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1926-27, Leipzig-Berlin, 1930, p. 209f. BING, Gertrud (ed.), Die Erneuerung der heidnischen Antike. Kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen Renaissance, (A. Warburg. Gesammelte Schriften, 1-2), in collaboration with Fritz Rougemont, 2 vols., Leipzig-Berlin, 1932. BING, Gertrud, Vorwort, in Die Erneuerung der heidnischen Antike. Kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen Renaissance, (A. Warburg. Gesammelte

Works by Gertrud Bing Dissertation

bibliography Schriften, 1), ed. Gertrud Bing, in collaboration with Fritz Rougemont, Leipzig-Berlin, 1932, vol. 1, p. XI-XIX. BING, Gertrud, Register, in Die Erneuerung der heidnischen Antike. Kulturwissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen Renaissance, (A. Warburg. Gesammelte Schriften, 2), ed. Gertrud Bing, in collaboration with Fritz Rougemont, Leipzig-Berlin, 1932, vol. 2, p. 669-725. BING, Gertrud (ed.), Aby M. Warburg, A Lecture on Serpent Ritual, trans. W. F. Mainland, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 2, 4, 1939, p. 277-292. BING, Gertrud (ed.), Lectures. F. Saxl, London, 2 vols., 1957. BING, Gertrud, Foreword, in Lectures. F. Saxl, ed. Gertrud Bing, London, 1957, vol. 1, s.p. BING, Gertrud (ed.), Studies of the Warburg Institute, 21 (1957) to 25 (1960), 27 (1962) and 28 (1963). BING, Gertrud (ed.), Oxford-Warburg Studies, I (1963) to IV (1966). As Translator FRANKFORT, Henri, The Archetype in Analytical Psychology and the History of Religion, trans. Gertrud Bing, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 21, 3, 4, 1958, p. 166-178. SAXL, Fritz, Veritas Filia Temporis, trans. D.V. Thompson & Gertrud Bing, in Philosophy and History. Essays presented to Ernst Cassirer, eds. Raymond Klibansky & Herbert J. Paton, Oxford, 1963 (1936), p. 197-222. In Memoriams and Biographical Notes about Gertrud Bing Bing, Gertrud. Identity Statement, in Archives in London and the M25 Area; http://www. aim25.com/cgi-bin/vcdf/detail?coll_ id=8604&inst_id=108&nv1=search&nv2= (accessed 24.3.2018).

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Bing, Gertrud, in Treccani. Enciclopedie online; http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gertrud-bing/ (accessed 4.10.2017). Bing, Gertrud(e), in Deutsches Literaturlexikon. Das 20. Jahrhundert. Band 2: Bauer – Ose – Björnson, eds. Wilhelm Kosch et al., BernMunich, 2001, p. 656-657. Bing, Gertrude, in Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933-1945, ed. Institut für Zeitgeschichte / Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration, vol. 2, Munich, 1999, p. 110. Bing, Gertrude, Prof., in Kurzbiographie zur Geschichte der Juden. 1918-1945, ed. Joseph Walk, Munich, 1988, p. 35. FRANKFORT, Enriqueta, Bing, Gertrud (18921964), in rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004; http://www. ox f o rd d n b. c o m / v i e w / a r t i c l e / 3 1 8 8 7 (accessed 4.10.2017). Gertrud Bing, in Die Zeit, 29, 17 July 1964; http:// www.zeit.de/1964/29?wt_zmc=fix.int. zonpme.zeitde.wall_abo.premium.packshot. cover.zear&utm_medium=fix&utm_ source=zeitde_zonpme_int&utm_campaign=wall_abo&utm_content=premium_ packshot_cover_zear (accessed 30.06.2018). Gertrud Bing. Obituary, in The Times, 6 juli 1964, in Obituaries from the Times 1961-1970, ed. Frank C. Roberts, Reading, 1975, p. 76. GOMBRICH, Ernst H., Gertrud Bing zum Gedenken, in Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunstsammlungen, 10, 1965, p. 7-12. GRAMBERG, Werner, In Memoriam Gertrud Bing, in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 11, 4, 1965, p. 293-295. HEISE, Carl Georg, Gertrud Bing + 3 juli 1964, in Kunstchronik, 17, 1964, p. 258-259. In Memoriam Gertrud Bing. 1892-1964, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 27, 1964, [p. 1-2]. MOMIGLIANO, Arnaldo, Gertrud Bing (18921964), in Pagine Ebraiche, ed. Silvia Berti, Rome, 2016, p. 259-263.

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SCHÄFER, Hans-Michael, Bing, Gertrud, in Das Jüdische Hamburg; http://www.dasjuedischehamburg.de/node/47 (accessed 24.10.2017). SORENSEN, Lee, Bing, Gertrud, in Dictionary of Art historians (website); http://www.arthistorians.info/bingg (accessed 4.10.2017). THE WARBURG INSTITUTE (ed.), Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), London, 1965. GOMBRICH, Ernst H., Introduction, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 1-3. THE TIMES, 6 July, 1964, in Gertrud Bing (18921964), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 4-6. CANTIMORI, Delio, Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 6-10. GORDON, Donald James, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 11-22. KLEMPERER, Otto, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 23. MOMIGLIANO, Arnaldo, in Gertrud Bing (18921964), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 24-28. PURDIE, Edna, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1965), ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 29-30. WENDLAND, Ulrike, Bing, Gertrud(e), in Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil. Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler, ed. Ulrike Wendland, Munich, 1999, vol. 1, p. 58. Secondary Literature ALLEN, Jeffner & Iris Marion YOUNG (eds.), The Thinking Muse. Feminism and Modern French Philosophy, Indianopolis, IN, 1989. BAERT, Barbara, Aby Warburgs (1866-1929) ‘Nymphe’. Ein Forschungsbericht zu Motiv,

Phantom und Paradigma, in Imago. Interdisziplinäres Jahrbuch für Psychoanalyse und Ästhetik, 4, 2017, p. 39-62. BARALE, Alice, Discesa nello spazio misterico e ‚spaccio delle tenebre‘: l‘ultimo viaggio di Warburg in Italia, in Engramma, 80, 2010: http://www.engramma.it/eOS/index. php?id_articolo=197580_barale_abstract (accessed 8.06.2012). BARALE, Alice & Laura SQUILLARO (eds.), Regesto di testi inediti e rari dal Warburg Institute Archive sul tema della Fortuna, in Engramma, 92, 2011; http://www.engramma. it/eOS/index.php?id_articolo=1651VIII (accessed 8.06.2018)). BARKAI, Avraham & Paul MENDES-FLOR, Aufbruch und Zerstörung (1918-1945), (Deutsch- Jüdische Geschichte in der Neuzeit, IV), ed. Michael A. Meyer, Munich, 1997. BAXANDALL, Michael, Is Durability Itself Not Also a Moral Quality?, in Common Knowledge, 18, 1, 2012, p. 22-31. BROUDE, Norma & Mary D. GARRARD, Introduction. Reclaiming Female Agency, in Reclaiming Female Agency. Feminist Art History after Postmodernism, eds. Norma Broude & Mary D. Garrard, Berkeley, CA-Los Angeles, CA-London, 2005, p. 1-25. BUBER, Martin, Jüdische Renaissance, in Ost und West, 1, 1901, p. 7-10. BUSH, Kathryn, Aby Warburg and the Cultural Historian Karl Lamprecht, in Art History as Cultural History. Warburg’s Projects, ed. Richard Woodfield, London-New York, 2014 (2001), p. 65-92. CASSIRER, Ernst, Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance, (Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, 10), Berlin-Leipzig, 1926. CHERNOW, Ron, The Warburgs. The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family, New York, 1993. DIDI-HUBERMAN, Georges, L’image survivante. Histoire de l’art et temps des fantômes selon Aby Warburg, Paris, 2002.

bibliography DOREN, Alfred, Fortuna im Mittelalter und in der Renaissance, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1922-23, 2, 1, 1924, p. 79-144. DYSON, Stephen L., Eugénie Sellers Strong. Portrait of an Archaeologist, London, 2004. FORSCHUNGSGRUPPE MNEMOSYNE, Zu Tafel 48, in Aby Warburg, Mnemosyne Bilderatlas, Karlsruhe, 2016, s.p. FORSTER, Kurt W., Introduction, in Aby Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity. Contributions to the Cultural History of the European Renaissance, ed. Gertrud Bing, trans. David Britt, Getty Research Insitute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999, p. 1-75. FUCHS, Florian, Panel 48, Guided Pathways in Mnemosyne. Meanderings through Aby Warburg’s Atlas, Cornell University, 2013; http://www.warburg.library.cornell.edu (accessed 8.6.2018). GINZBURG, Carlo, Une machine à penser, in Common Knowledge, 18, 1, 2012, p. 79-85. GOMBRICH, Ernst H., The Earliest Description of Bosch’s Garden of Delight, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 30, 1967, p. 403-406. GOMBRICH, Ernst H., Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, 21986 (1970). GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von, Harzreise im Winter (1777), in Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens, Munich, 1987, vol. 2.1, p. 37-41. GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von, Faust. Ein Fragment, Leipzig, 1790. GÖTZ, Bettina, Gertrud Bing Verein zur Förderung von Frauenforschung in Kunstund Kulturwissenschaften e.V., in Aby Warburg. Akten des internationalen Symposions Hamburg 1990, eds. Horst Bredekamp, Michael Diers & Charlotte SchoellGlass, (Schriften des Warburg-Archivs im Kunstgeschichtlichen Seminar der Universität Hamburg, 1), Weinheim, 1991, p. 299304.

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GÖTZ, Bettina, College Bing und Fräulein Doktor, in Denkräume zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft. 5. Kunsthistorikerinnentagung in Hamburg 1991, eds. Silvia Baumgart et al., Berlin, 1993, p. 19-26. GRAUPE, Heinz Mosche, Die Entstehung des modernen Judentums. Geistesgeschichte der deutschen Juden 1650-1942, Hamburg, 21977. HEISE, Carl Georg, Persönliche Erinnerungen an Aby Warburg, ed. and comm. Björn Biester & Hans-Michael Schäfer, Wiesbaden, 2005. HEMPEL-KÜTER, Christa, Germanistik zwischen 1925 und 1955. Studien zur Welt der Wissenschaft am Beispiel von Hans Pyritz, Berlin, 2000. HEREMANS, Stephanie, Warburg’s Fortuna. An Enduring Fascination and Methodological ‘Turn’, in IKON: Journal of Iconographic Studies, 13, 2020, (in press). HOFFMANN, Traute, Der erste deutsche Zonta-Club. Auf den Spuren außergewöhnlicher Frauen, Hamburg-Munich, 2002, p. 43-50. IBSEN, Henrik, Die Frau vom Meere. Schauspiel in fünf Akten, in Henrik Ibsen. Sämtliche Werke, vol. 5, eds. Julius Elias & Paul Schlenther, Berlin, 1907. JOHNSON, Christopher D., Memory, Metaphor and Aby Warburg’s Atlas of Images, Ithaca, NY, 2012. KLIBANSKY, Raymond & Herbert J. Paton (eds.), Philosophy and History. The Ernst Cassirer Festschrift, New York-London, 1963 (1936). LADWIG, Perdita, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, muss man (auch nicht) schreiben. Die Korrespondenz von Gertrud Bing mit Freunden und Kollegen, in Auf unsicherem Terrain. Briefschreiben im Exil, eds. Hiltrud Häntzschel et al., Munich, 2013, p. 110-120. LESCOURRET, Marie-Anne, Aby Warburg ou la tentation du regard, Malakoff, 2013. LEVINE, Emily J., PanDora, or Erwin and Dora Panofsky and the Private History of

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MICHELS, Karen & Charlotte SCHOELL-GLASS, Die Literatur-und Kulturwissenschaftlerin Gertrud Bing (Hamburg, 1892-1964), in Frauen im Hamburger Kulturleben, ed. Elsbeth Weichmann Gesellschaft, Hamburg, 2002, p. 29-39. MICHELS, Karen, Glück im Unglück? Kunsthistorikerinnen im Exil, in Grenzen Überschreiten. Frauen, Kunst und Exil, eds. Ursula Hudson-Wiedenmann & Beate Schmiedel-Falkenberg, Würzburg, 2005, p. 123-130. MICHELS, Karen, Aby Warburg. Im Bannkreis der Ideen, Munich, 2008. MOMIGLIANO, Arnaldo, On Pagans, Jews, and Christians, Middletown, CT, 1987. NABER, Claudia, ‘…die Fackel deutsch-jüdischer Geistigkeit weitertragen’. Der Hamburger Kreis um Ernst Cassirer und Aby Warburg, in Die Juden in Hamburg 1590 bis 1990. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge der Universität Hamburg zur Ausstellung ‘Vierhundert Jahre Juden in Hamburg’, ed. Arno Herzig, Hamburg, 1991, p. 393-406. NIETZSCHE, Friedrich, Ecce homo. Warum ich so klug bin, § 10, in Friedrich Nietzsche, Digital critical edition of the complete works and letters, eds. G. Colli & M. Montinari, Berlin-New York, 1967-, ed. Paolo D’Iorio; http://www.nietzschesource.org/eKGWB/EH-Klug-10 (accessed 8.6.18). NIETZSCHE, Friedrich, Jenseits von Gut und Böse: § 146. Erste Veröff. 04/08/1886, in Friedrich Nietzsche, Digital Critical Edition of the Complete Works and Letters, eds. G. Colli & M. Montinari, Berlin-New York, 1967-, ed. Paolo D’Iorio; http://www.nietzschesource. org/eKGWB/JGB-146 (accessed 8.6.2018). NIETZSCHE, Friedrich, Nachgelassene Fragmente Frühjahr–Herbst 1881, 11[148], in Friedrich Nietzsche, Digital Critical Edition of the Complete Works and Letters, eds. G. Colli & M. Montinari, Berlin-New York, 1967-, ed. Paolo D’Iorio; http://www.nietzschesource.

bibliography org/eKGWB/NF-1881,11[148] (accessed 8.6.2018). OLSCHKI, Leonardo, Giordano Bruno, in Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 2, 1924, p. 1–79. PANOFSKY, Erwin, ‘Good Government or Fortune?’ The Iconography of a Newly-Discovered Composition by Rubens, in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, lxviii, 1966, p. 307-326. PETSCH, Robert, Freiheit und Notwendigkeit in Schillers Dramen, (Goethe-und Schillerstudien, 1), Munich, 1905. PRAY BOBER, Phyllis, A Life of Learning. Charles Homer Haskins Lecture for 1995 (American Council of Learned Societies Occasional Paper, No. 30), 29 April 1995; www.collegeart.org/pdf/PhyllisPrayBober.pdf (accessed 15.03.2018). RANDT, Ursula, Zur Geschichte des jüdischen Schulwesens in Hamburg (ca. 1780-1942), in Die Juden in Hamburg 1590 bis 1990. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge der Universität Hamburg zur Ausstellung ‘Vierhundert Jahre Juden in Hamburg’, ed. Arno Herzig, Hamburg, 1991, p. 113-130. SAXL, Fritz, Veritas Filia Temporis, trans. D.V. Thompson & Gertrud Bing, in Philosophy and History. Essays presented to Ernst Cassirer, eds. Raymond Klibansky & Herbert J. Paton, Oxford, 1963 (1936), p. 197–222. SAXL, Fritz, The History of Warburg’s Library (1886-1944), in Ernst H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, 2 1986 (1970), p. 325-338. SCHOELL-GLASS, Charlotte, Aby Warburg und der Antisemitismus. Kulturwissenschaft als Geistespolitik, Frankfurt, 1998. SCHULLER, Marianne, Darstellung des Ungedachten. Zum konstellativen Verfahren in Aby Warburgs Mnemosyne-Atlas, in MLN, 126, 3, Constellations / Konstellationen, 2011, p. 581-589.

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SEARS, Elisabeth, Kenneth Clark and Gertrud Bing. Letters on the Nude, in The Burlington Magazine, 153, 1301, 2011, p. 530-531. SEMINARIO MNEMOSYNE (eds.), Fortuna nel Rinascimento. Una lettura di tavola 48 del Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, in Engramma, 92, 2011; http://www.engramma.it/eOS/index. php?id_articolo=1649 (accessed 8.6.2018). TOYNBEE, J. M. C. & Stephen L. DYSON, Strong [née Sellers], Eugénie (1860–1943), in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004; https://doi.org/10.1093/ ref:odnb/ 36352 (accessed 23.3.2018). VORHOLT, Hanna, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete, kann ich auch in England oder Frankreich sein’. A Letter by Gertrud Bing to Hanns Swarzenski of May 1933, in The afterlife of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg. The emigration and the early years of the Warburg Institute in London, (Vorträge aus dem Warburg-Haus, 12), eds. Uwe Fleckner & Peter Mack, Berlin, 2015, p. 23-37. WARBURG, Aby M., Francesco Sassettis letztwillige Verfügung, in Kunstwissenschaftliche Beiträge August Schmarsow gewidmet, ed. Heinrich Weizsäcker, Leipzig, 1907, p. 129-152. WARBURG, Aby, Mnemosyne. Einleitung. Introduzione al Bilderatlas (1929), ed. & trans. Maurizio Ghelardi, in Engramma, 138, 2016; http://www.engramma.it/eOS/index. php?id_articolo=2991 (accessed 8.6.2018). WITTKOWER, Rudolf, Patience and Chance. The Story of a Political Emblem, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 2, 1937, p. 171-177. WITTKOWER, Rudolf, Chance, Time and Virtue, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 313-321. YATES, Frances A., The Art of Memory, (Frances A. Yates. Selected Works, III), London-New York, 2007 (1966). YATES, Frances A., The Valois tapestries, ed. Gertrud Bing, London, 1959 (1999).

Index Nominum B Bachrach, Mrs., 15-16 Baert, Barbara, 93 Barkai, Avraham, 25-26 Baxandall, Michael, 3, 33, 37, 39 Bienenfeld, Elise, 19 Binswanger, Ludwig, 8 Boll, Franz, 71 Bronzino, Agnolo, 75 Bruno, Giordano, 13, 64-68, 72 C Cantimori, Delio, 10 Cassirer, Ernst, 4, 8, 19, 20, 27, 31, 36, 51, 54, 78 n. 314, 79 Cassirer, Toni, 19, 21, 34, 54 D Didi-Huberman, Georges, 39 Doni, Anton F., 79-83 E Eckardt, Isabella von, 49 F Ficino, Marsilio, 74 Forli, Marcolino da, 79 Frankfort, Enriqueta, 28, 38 Frankfort, Henri, 5, 28 G Gentile, Giovanni, 68 Ginzburg, Carlo, 10 Goethe, Johann W. von, V, XI, 23, 26, 54, 91, 94, 95 Gombrich, Ernst H., 1, 3, 40 Gordon, Donald J., 7, 10, 82 n. 331 Gütschow, Margarete, 16

H Heise, Carl G., 13, 17 I Ibsen, Henrik, 53, 63, 69, 75, 77, 82 J Johnson, Christopher, 67, 93 Joseph, Marianne, 16-17 K Klemperer, Otto, 40 n. 212, 82 n. 331 L Leibniz, Gottfried W., 51, 54, 56 Lescourret, Marie-Anne, 13, 31 Lessing, Gotthold E., 17, 23, 38, 51, 54-60, 78, 82 Levine, Emily, 13, 22, 31 M Manet, Édouard, 70-71 McEwan, Dorothea, 5 n. 11, 27 Mendes-Flor, Paul, 25 Michels, Karen, 14, 23, 31, 34 Mithras, 65 Momigliano, Arnaldo, 10, 17, 19 N Nietzsche, Friedrich, 60, 61, 62, 64 O Olschki, Leonardo, 64 n. 265 P Panofsky, Dora, 21, 34, 35 Panofsky, Erwin, 21, 56 Petsch, Robert, 4, 26 n. 124, 51, 54 Pray Bober, Phyllis, 20-21 Purdie, Edna, 37-38, 40 n. 212, 55

108

the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

R Raimondi, Marcantonio, 70-71 Reni, Guido, 75 Rucellai, Giovanni, 72, 74 S Samson, Esther, 28 Sassetti, Francesco, 61, 72, 74 Saxl, Fritz, 8-10, 17-22, 27, 28, 31, 32, 35, 36, 52, 56, 78, 79, 79 n. 324, 94 Schoell-Glass, Charlotte, 23, 31 Solmitz, Esther, 21, 32 Solmitz, Walter, 21, 27-28, 29, 32 Strong, Eugénie (née Sellers), 36-37, 64 n. 261 Swarzenski, Hanns, 25-26, 61 T Theunissen, Cornelis Anthonisz, 74

V Vinci, Leonardo da, 82 Vorholt, Hanna, 25 W Warburg, Aby M., XIII, XIV, XV, 1, 3-5, 8-10, 13-20, 22, 23, 28, 30-35, 37, 39-40, 49, 51, 52, 56, 60-62, 64-66, 68, 70-72, 74, 75, 78, 93, 94 Warburg, Eric M., 5, 25 Warburg, Max, 10, 68 Wittkower, Rudolf, 15 Y Yates, Frances, 33

Colophon Studies in Iconology accepts original and interdisciplinary contributions in the broader field of art theory and art history. The series addresses an audience that seeks to understand any aspect and any deeper meaning of the visual medium along the history of mankind in the fields of philosophy, art history, theology and cultural anthropology. This essay was written in the context of the research project The Right Moment. Kairos: Nachleben and Iconology, supervised by Barbara Baert (KU Leuven) and Han Lamers (University of Oslo). Special thanks are due to Barbara Baert (KU Leuven), Stijn Demaré, Stephanie Heremans (KU Leuven), Han Lamers (University of Oslo), Eckart Marchand (The Warburg Institute), Stijn Van Tongerloo (proofreading), Claudia Wedepohl (The Warburg Institute).

Studies in Iconology

 1. Barbara Baert, Nymph. Motif, Phantom, Affect. A Contribution to the Study of Aby Warburg (1866-1929), 2014, viii-134 p. 2. Barbara Baert, Late Medieval Enclosed Gardens of the Low Countries. Contributions to Gender and Artistic Expression, 2015, viii-112 p. 3. Barbara Baert, Locus Amoenus and the Sleeping Nymph. Ekphrasis, Silence and Genius Loci, 2016, VIII-118 p. 4. Barbara Baert, Nymph. Motif, Phantom, Affect. Part II. Aby Warburg’s (1866-1929) Butterflies as Art Historical Paradigms, 2016, X-105 p. 5. Barbara Baert, Kairos or Occasion as Paradigm in the Visual Medium “Nachleben”, Iconography, Hermeneutics, 2016, VIII-133 p. 6. Barbara Baert, In Response to Echo. Beyond Mimesis or Dissolution as Scopic Regime (With Special Attention to Camouflage), 2016, VIII104 p. 7. Barbara Baert, Revisiting Salome’s Dance in Medieval and Early Modern Iconology, 2016, VIII-92 p. 8. Joseph IMORDE, Carlo Dolci. A Refreshment, 2016, VIII-108 p. 9. Adi EFAL-LAUTENSCHLÄGER, Habitus as Method. Revisiting a Scholastic Theory of Art, 2017, VI-110 p. 10. Barbara BAERT, About Stains or the Image as Residue, 2017, X-118 p. 11. Larry SILVER, Rembrandt and the Divine, 2018, XIII-106 p. 12. Dominique BAUER, Place – Text – Trace. The Fragility of the Spatial Image, 2018, VIII-109 p. 13. Barbara BAERT, What about Enthusiasm? A Rehabilitation. Pentecost, Pygmalion, “Pathosformel”, 2019, X-139 p. 14. Barbara BAERT, Fragments, 2018, X-402 p. 15. Han LAMERS, Afterlife of Antiquity. Anton Springer (1825-1891) on the Classical Tradition, 2019, XII-130 p.