The pathos formulae and their survival (ENG/ESP)

Abstract

This article attempts to set out and understand what art historian Aby Warburg called Pathosformel (pathos formulae), a key concept in his studies, though he never expressly offered a definition, nor explained what his understanding of it was. The emergence of the concept is traced in his work, deciphering its meaning and its implications for the analysis of images, also from the most significant and recent bibliography on the subject. Finally, the Pathosformel concept is applied to a contemporary photographic image which enables us to better understand its effect in the way it is received by its viewers, thus establishing a dialogue between the iconographic tradition of the past and the present.