@article{ART003263097},
author={Seung-Chol Shin},
title={From Darwin to the Nymph: Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel and the Physics of Thought},
journal={The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art},
issn={1229-0246},
year={2025},
volume={76},
pages={104-133}
TY - JOUR
AU - Seung-Chol Shin
TI - From Darwin to the Nymph: Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel and the Physics of Thought
JO - The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art
PY - 2025
VL - 76
IS - null
PB - 한국미학예술학회
SP - 104
EP - 133
SN - 1229-0246
AB - This paper examines the cultural significance of the Pathosformel. Aby Warburg coined the term while observing expressive gestural types from antiquity that were reappropriated in the Renaissance. For him, the Pathosformel functions both as a site of survival and as a vehicle of transmission, insofar as the psychic energies of antiquity are preserved and reactivated in visual forms. It operates as an engram imprinted with primordial affect that sustains its energetic intensity through a mental oscillation between polarities and is reanimated according to each epoch’s selective will. In this way, Warburg connects the Pathosformel to an aesthetics of energy and elucidates its anthropological significance as a survival, namely the acquisition of a psychic capacity to transform or invert affective energies in order to cope with external stimuli. By tracing how art historical research on ancient gestural types expands into cultural psychology through Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, and how the nymph functions as a Dynamogram linking these gestures to an aesthetics of energy, this study sheds light on Warburg’s reflections on the expressive value of the image.
KW - Afterlife;Charles Darwin;Cultural Psychology;Energetic Inversion;Nymph;Schemata Pathosformeln;Polarity
DO -
UR -
ER -
Seung-Chol Shin. (2025). From Darwin to the Nymph: Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel and the Physics of Thought. The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art, 76, 104-133.
Seung-Chol Shin. 2025, "From Darwin to the Nymph: Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel and the Physics of Thought", The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art, vol.76, pp.104-133.
Seung-Chol Shin "From Darwin to the Nymph: Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel and the Physics of Thought" The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art 76 pp.104-133 (2025) : 104.
Seung-Chol Shin. From Darwin to the Nymph: Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel and the Physics of Thought. 2025; 76 104-133.
Seung-Chol Shin. "From Darwin to the Nymph: Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel and the Physics of Thought" The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art 76(2025) : 104-133.
Seung-Chol Shin. From Darwin to the Nymph: Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel and the Physics of Thought. The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art, 76, 104-133.
Seung-Chol Shin. From Darwin to the Nymph: Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel and the Physics of Thought. The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art. 2025; 76 104-133.
Seung-Chol Shin. From Darwin to the Nymph: Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel and the Physics of Thought. 2025; 76 104-133.
Seung-Chol Shin. "From Darwin to the Nymph: Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel and the Physics of Thought" The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art 76(2025) : 104-133.
