Abstract
Author(s): Burroughs, Charles | Abstract: Aby Warburg based his revolutionary approach to Renaissance art in large part on his study of motif of what he called the nymph. The nymph's ecstatic movement and association with flying and floating drapery elements embodied a Dionysian side of classical art in tension with harmonious and balanced -- i.e., Apollonian -- character attributed to it since Winckelmann. In this paper I explore figures privileged by Warburg, examining their relation to mainly literary ancient sources and to role played by each figure in pictorial economy in whicb they are set. In particular I focus on social implications, having to do with not only with characterization in terms of rank and role but also, in one key case, place within an argument, sketched out in imagery, about very nature of civil society.
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