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
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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 ................... 
X 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 resist-
ances”.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 dis-
tinctive 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
XIV the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 presenta-
tion. 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 errei-
chen 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 addi-
tion, she produced a modest scientific oeuvre, which is equally worthy of atten-
tion. 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 XV

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

1 Die genaue Erforschung des Anteils von in Reclaiming Female Agency. Feminist Art
Gertrud Bing an der Arbeit Warburgs sowie History after Postmodernism, eds. Norma
an der Fortentwicklung und Etablierung der Broude & Mary D. Garrard, Berkeley,
von ihm begründeten kulturwissenschaft- CA-Los Angeles, CA-Londen, 2005,
lichen Methode, ihrer sogenannten stillen p. 1-25, p. 3.
Tätigkeit, wäre eine Aufgabe für feministi- 3 Götz, Gertrud Bing Verein, o.c., p. 303.
sche Spurensuche. Solche Spuren finden sich 4 WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1,
z. B. in unzähligen Danksagungen in envelope 2. Draft application to the
Vorworten und Fußnoten. Bettina Götz, Bollinger Foundation for a grant.
Gertrud Bing Verein zur Förderung von 5 WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1,
Frauenforschung in Kunst-und Kulturwis- envelope 2. Draft of letter to Eric
senschaften e.V., in Aby Warburg. Akten des Warburg 2 December 1960.
internationalen Symposions Hamburg 1990, 6 WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1,
eds. Horst Bredekamp, Michael Diers & envelope 2. Draft application to the
Charlotte Schoell-Glass, (Schriften des Bollinger Foundation for a grant.
Warburg-Archivs im Kunstgeschichtlichen 7 WIA, GC, G. Bing to A. Warburg,
Seminar der Universität Hamburg, 1), 14 June 1924.
Weinheim, 1991, p. 299-304, p. 301.
2 Norma Broude & Mary D. Garrard,
Introduction. Reclaiming Female Agency,
 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 mind-
sets 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
4 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

YOUTH AND EDUCATION

7 June 1892 Born in Hamburg as the daughter of Moritz Bing (1839-1898)
and Emma Jonas (1855-1912)
1912 Wissenschaftliche Abschlussung at the Oberlyzeum
(Lehrerinnenseminar) der Unterrichtsanstalten des Klosters
St. Johannis, Hamburg
1913 Lehramtsprüfung für höhere Mädchenschulen
1913-1914 Teacher at a private school
1916 Abitur at the Heinrich-Hertz-Realgymnasium, Hamburg
1916-1918 Studies Philosophy, Literature and Psychology in Munich.
Instructed in philosophy by Prof. Dr. Geiger and Prof. Dr. Pfänder
1919 Substitute teacher (due to Kriegsvertretung) at the Knaben-
Oberrealschule Eimsbüttel, Hamburg
1920 Studies Philosophy, Literature and Psychology in Hamburg,
at the newly established University of Hamburg (°1 April 1919)
4 June 1921 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 Appointment as librarian
1927 Assistant-director of the library and assistant of Aby Warburg
1928-1929 Journey to Italy with Aby Warburg

EMIGRATION TO LONDON
1933 The K.B.W. moves to London
1933-1944 Assistant-director of the K.B.W.
1946 British citizenship
1944-1955 Assistant-director of The Warburg Institute, University of London
1955-1959 Director of The Warburg Institute and Professor of the History
of the Classical Tradition, University of London

FINAL YEARS
1959 Professor Emerita
2 June 1964 Hospitalisation
3 July 1964 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 forget-
fulness 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 Kulturwissen-
schaftliche 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 intel-
lectual 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 Ham-
burg 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 geistes-
geschichtlichen 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 day-
to-day events that happened to her, and the needs she observed in her environ-
ment 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 direc-
torial staff:

Angesichts des bevorstehenden Einzuges in das eigene Haus will sich die bishe-
rige 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. zusammen-
gefunden haben und ihr jenseits von Empfindlichkeiten weiter gedeihlich
zusammenzuwirken entschlossen sind, soll hier schonungslos aber rein sachlich
kritisiert werden.24
 of muses and phantoms 9

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

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 Geistes-
verfassung 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 11

Fig 3. Gertrud Bing at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, 1927.

London, The Warburg Institute Archive
12 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

Fig. 4. Gertrud Bing and Aby Warburg in Orvieto, 14 March 1929.

London, The Warburg Institute Archive
 of muses and phantoms 13

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

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 heran-
gegangen.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 schwarz-
ornamentalen 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 Kunst-
kommentare.56
 of muses and phantoms 15

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 Beeinträch-
tigungen 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:
16 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 Pro-
fessors 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
 of muses and phantoms 17

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 War-
burg 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 correspon-
dence 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
18 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 under-
stated. 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
 of muses and phantoms 19

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 bio-
graphies 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 Weiter-
bestand der Bibliothek.86
20 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 neben-
einander liegende Häuser mit separaten Eingängen, Verbindungstür und gemein-
samem 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:
 of muses and phantoms 21

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 com-
munity.98 As daughter of the Jewish merchant Moritz Bing, she was, as Emily
Levine casually remarks, “a product of the Hamburg Jewish trading Bürger-
tum”.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 emancipa-
tion 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 reflec-
ted, in a certain sense, the religious diversity that was encouraged by the state-
legislated 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 Synago-
genverband and the conservative congregation around the Neue Dammtor-
synagoge, which was founded in 1894.104 The fact that non-religious Jews105 could
 of muses and phantoms 23

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 comme-
moration 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 disserta-
tion – 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, Umweltver-
bundenheit nach, auch was die liebevolle Zugehörigkeit zur Heimat anbetrifft, tau-
sendmal 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 liber-
ties and tolerance. In any case, it is clear that her mentor Aby Warburg did feel
24 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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.
 of muses and phantoms 25

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

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 differenzier-
ter 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
 of muses and phantoms 27

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 difficul-
ties 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, deregis-
tered 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 eigent-
lich 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 Unter-
nehmens 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 com-
pelled 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 Novem-
ber Pogrom in 1938, and Solmitz was deported to Dachau, Bing and Saxl finally
28 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 Ambu-
lance 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
 of muses and phantoms 29

Tradition des deutschen Judentums mit europäischem Geist, zu deren letzten Über-
lebenden 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 Land-
schaft 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 conclu-
sion 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 improve-
ment and many female academics were removed from their posts.150 The emi-
gration to London meant freedom for Bing in that respect, and facilitated her
emancipation as a female academic.
 of muses and phantoms 31

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

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’ Traditio-
nen 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
 of muses and phantoms 33

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 colle-
agues 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.
34 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

Nachmittags die amerikanischen Bibliothekarinnen Miss Williams (Washing-

ton) 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 Geschäfts-
sitz. 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
 of muses and phantoms 35

‘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 des-
cribed 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
36 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 wis-
senschaftliche Größe zu werden, die sie aufgegeben habe (katholisches Demut-
serlebnis spielt hinein!) als sie gesehen hat, daß sie die höchste Höhe nicht errei-
chen 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 ursprüng-
lichen 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 essen-
tially 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.
 of muses and phantoms 37

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 megalo-

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

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 Insti-
tute”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 characte-
risation is perhaps even more applicable to Gertrud Bing herself. Her contribu-
tion 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 phan-
tom that may occasionally come haunt us, but whose very essence seems elusive.
40 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 multi-
faceted 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 pro-
fessional 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.
 of muses and phantoms 41

8 Ernst H. Gombrich, Gertrud Bing zum Freiheit und Notwendigkeit, so möchte man
Gedenken, in Jahrbuch der Hamburger glauben, daß sie selbst in der Annahme der
Kunstsammlungen, 10, 1965, p. 7-12, p. 11. Forderungen der Welt und des Tages ihre
9 Gertrud Bing. Obituary, in The Times, große Leistung gesehen hat. Karen Michels
6 July 1964, in Obituaries from the Times & Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Die Litera-
1961-1970, ed. Frank C. Roberts, Reading, tur-und Kulturwissenschaftlerin Gertrud
1975, p. 76; Gertrud Bing, in Die Zeit, 29, Bing (Hamburg, 1892-1964), in Frauen im
17 July 1964; In Memoriam Gertrud Bing. Hamburger Kulturleben, ed. Elsbeth
1892-1964, in Journal of the Warburg and Weichmann Gesellschaft, Hamburg,
Courtauld Institutes, 27, 1964, [p. 1-2]; Carl 2002, p. 29-39, p. 34 and 38.
Georg Heise, Gertrud Bing + 3 juli 1964, 17 Donald James Gordon, in Gertrud Bing
in Kunstchronik, 17, 1964, p. 258-259; The (1892-1964), ed. The Warburg Institute,
Warburg Institute (ed.), Gertrud Bing London, 1965, p. 11-22, p. 18-19.
(1892-1964), London, 1965; Werner 18 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 52-60.
Gramberg, In Memoriam Gertrud Bing, 19 WIA, GC, F. Saxl to A. Warburg, 23 March
in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen 1922. McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 61.
Institutes in Florenz, 11, 4, 1965, p. 293-295; 20 Karen Michels, Aby Warburg. Im Bann-
Gombrich, Gertrud Bing, o.c. kreis der Ideen, Munich, 2008, p. 90.
10 Michael Baxandall, Is Durability Itself 21 Letter from Gertrud Bing to Fritz Saxl,
Not Also a Moral Quality?, in Common 4 July 1923. Kathryn Bush, Aby Warburg
Knowledge, 18, 1, 2012, p. 22-31, p. 23. and the Cultural Historian Karl Lam-
11 According to Dorothea McEwan, this precht, in Art History as Cultural History.
happened at Gertrud Bing’s request. Warburg’s Projects, ed. Richard Woodfield,
Dorothea McEwan, Fritz Saxl. Eine London-New York, 2014 (2001), p. 65-92,
Biografie. Aby Warburgs Bibliothekar und p. 91 n. 57.
erster Direktor des Londoner Warburg 22 Aby Warburg to Ludwig Binswanger,
Institutes, Vienna, 2012, p. 121. 18 November 1924. McEwan, Fritz Saxl,
12 Perdita Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen o.c., p. 196.
kann, muss man (auch nicht) schreiben. 23 The first trinity being nel sigillo stesso dell’
Die Korrespondenz von Gertrud Bing mit Istituto: Mundus-Annus-Homo. Arnaldo
Freunden und Kollegen, in Auf unsicherem Momigliano, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964),
Terrain. Briefschreiben im Exil, eds. ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965,
Hiltrud Häntzschel, et al., Munich, 2013, p. 24-28, p. 24. = Arnaldo Momigliano,
p. 110-120, p. 116. Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), in Pagine
13 Included in Erwin Panofsky, Korrespon- Ebraiche, ed. Silvia Berti, Roma, 2016,
denz 1910-1968. Band 3: Korrespondenz p. 259-263, p. 259.
1950 bis 1956, ed. Dieter Wuttke, Wies- 24 Aby Warburg, Tagebuch der Kulturwissen-
baden, 2006, p. 689. schaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg mit Ein-
14 Gertrud Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendi- trägen von Gertrud Bing und Fritz Saxl,
gen bei Lessing. Ein Beitrag zum geistes- (Aby Warburg. Gesammelte Schriften.
geschichtlichen Problem Leibniz-Lessing, Studienausgabe, VII), eds. Karen Michels
unpublished doctoral dissertation, & Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Berlin, 2001,
Hamburg, 1921. p. 2.
15 Bing, Lebenslauf, in Der Begriff des 25 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 62.
Notwendigen, o.c. 26 Thomas Meyer & Martin Treml, Gertrud
16 Denkt man zurück an ihre frühe Beschäf- Bing. Ein intellektuelles Porträt, in
tigung mit der Frage des Verhältnisses von Trajekte, 10, 2005, p. 18-22, p. 20.
42 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

27 Gertrud Bing. Obituary, o.c.; In 42 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 457.

Memoriam Gertrud Bing, 1892-1964, o.c. 43 According to Michels, Bannkreis, o.c.,
28 Gombrich, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 8. p. 109.
29 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 81. 44 Gertrud Bing assisted in the preparation
30 WIA, FC, A. Warburg to M. Warburg, of the lecture, which was given the title
22 July 1929. Quoted in Meyer & Treml, Die römische Antike in der Werkstatt Ghir-
Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 20. landajos. Elisabeth Sears, Kenneth Clark
31 Claudia Naber, ‘…die Fackel deutsch-jüdi- and Gertrud Bing. Letters on the Nude, in
scher Geistigkeit weitertragen’. Der Ham- The Burlington Magazine, 153, 1301, 2011,
burger Kreis um Ernst Cassirer und Aby p. 530-531, p. 530.
Warburg, in Die Juden in Hamburg 1590 bis 45 For more details, see chapter 7 of
1990. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge der Univer- Johnson, Memory, o.c.
sität Hamburg zur Ausstellung ‘Vierhundert 46 “Their main goal was originally to collect
Jahre Juden in Hamburg’, ed. Arno Herzig, material to supplement the ever-mutat-
Hamburg, 1991, p. 393-406, p. 397. ing Bilderatlas, which, when they left
32 Gertrud Bing wirkt calmierend, Aby Hamburg, consisted of eighty panels and
Warburg writes, not without a touch of some 1,300 images.” Johnson, Memory,
humour, on 26 March 1929 in the Tage- o.c., p. 194.
buch. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 425 47 Emily J. Levine, PanDora, or Erwin and
(VII, p. 231). Dora Panofsky and the Private History of
33 Saxl e Bing erano da un lato meno impe- Ideas, in Journal of Modern History, 83, 4,
gnati in questa esorcizzazione di demoni 2011, p. 753-787, p. 772 n.88.
che per Warburg erano stati una realtà 48 Carl Georg Heise, Persönliche Erinnerun-
quotidiana, ma d’altro lato erano anche gen an Aby Warburg, ed. and comm.
meno sicuri che l’esorcizzazione fosse Björn Biester & Hans-Michael Schäfer,
possibile. Momigliano, in Gertrud Bing Wiesbaden, 2005, p. 56.
(1892-1964), o.c., p. 26. = Momigliano, 49 WIA, GC, A. Warburg to T. Cassirer,
Pagine Ebraiche, o.c., p. 261. 6 March 1929; WIA, FC, A. Warburg to
34 Gordon, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., M. Warburg, 22 July 1929; Thomas Meyer,
p. 19. Aus einem Espace Autre des Archivs.
35 Carlo Ginzburg, Une machine à penser, Gertrud Bing an die Cassirers, Florenz
in Common Knowledge, 18, 1, 2012, 1. Juni 1929, in Trajekte, 10, 5, 2005, p. 15-17.
p. 79-85, p. 81-82. 50 Quand il est à Hambourg, Aby passe plus de
36 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 119. temps à la bibliothèque, avec celle dont il a
37 WIA, FC, A. Warburg to M. Warburg, fait son assistante en 1927, qu’avec sa
22 July 1929. Quoted in Christopher D. famille, sa femme. Ainsi naît ce qui, dans
Johnson, Memory, Metaphor and Aby une lettre d’Aby à Mary du 18 septembre
Warburg’s Atlas of Images, Ithaca, NY, 1927, devient ‘le cas Bing’. Les enfants s’en
2012, p. 194. émeuvent. Ils s’inquiètent qu’Aby n’évoque
38 Michels, Bannkreis, o.c., p. 109. les affaires familiales avec Bing. Ils souhai-
39 Marie-Anne Lescourret, Aby Warburg teraient même qu’il stoppe toute relation
ou la tentation du regard, Malakoff, 2013, avec elle. Mais, dit Warburg, Bing prend
p. 300. soin de lui, mieux que sa famille, avec
40 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 119. laquelle il serait sur le point de rompre.
41 GC, A. Warburg to F. Saxl, 11 May 1927, Lescourret, Aby Warburg, o.c., p. 298.
W /S file. Quoted in McEwan, Fritz 51 Il ressort également de ses remarques à Mary
Saxl, o.c., p. 119. qu’à cela s’ajoute son égotisme constitutif,
 of muses and phantoms 43

exacerbé durant ses années d’internement et 66 Heise, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 258.
toujours tenace, qui lui donne le sentiment 67 Aby M. Warburg, Die Erneuerung der
qu’on – et surtout ses proches – ne s’occupe heidnischen Antike. Kulturwissenschaftliche
jamais assez de lui, qu’on ne lui accorde Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen
jamais assez d’importance et de recon- Renaissance, (A. Warburg. Gesammelte
naissance. Or le fait est que, et du propre Schriften, 1-2), ed. Gertrud Bing, in colla-
aveu de Gertrud Bing, celle-ci lui a apporté boration with Fritz Rougemont, 2 vol.,
et l’admiration et le dévouement quasi Leipzig-Berlin, 1932.
sacrificiel qu’il exige de chacun. Lescourret, 68 WIA, GC, C.G. Heise to G. Bing,
Aby Warburg, o.c., p. 298-299. 16 May 1939. Quoted from Heise, Persön-
52 Arnaldo Momigliano, On Pagans, Jews, liche Erinnerungen, o.c., p. 104-105.
and Christians, Middletown, CT, 1987, 69 WIA, GC, C.G. Heise to G. Bing,
p. 92. 11 April 1946. Quoted from Heise,
53 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 361. Persönliche Erinnerungen, o.c., p. 105.
54 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 367. 70 Heise, Persönliche Erinnerungen, o.c.,
55 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 455. p. 104-106.
56 Aby Warburg, Mit Bing in Rom, Neapel, 71 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 10.
Capri und Italien. Auf den Spuren einer 72 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 16.
ungewöhnliche Reise, ed. Karen Michels, 73 Bettina Götz, College Bing und Fräulein
Hamburg, 22010, p. 12 and p. 119-120. Doktor, in Denkräume zwischen Kunst und
57 WIA, GC, G. Bing to R. Wittkower and Wissenschaft. 5. Kunsthistorikerinnenta-
Mrs. Wittkower, 12 December 1929. gung in Hamburg 1991, eds. Silvia Baum-
58 WIA, G. Bing to Mrs. Bachrach, gart, et al., Berlin, 1993, p. 19-26, p. 20.
2 December 1929. 74 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 201
59 See for example WIA, G. Bing to (IV p. 63).
A. Berend, 14 December 1929. 75 Götz, College Bing, o.c., p. 20.
60 WIA, GC, G. Bing to M. Gütschow, 76 Fritz Saxl, The History of Warburg’s
18 December 1929. Library (1886-1944), in Ernst H.
61 WIA, G. Bing to M. Joseph, 12 Decem- Gombrich, Aby Warburg. An Intellectual
ber 1929. Biography, Oxford, 21986 (1970), p. 325-
62 WIA, 103.6. G. Bing to F. Saxl. Quoted 338, p. 331.
from Kurt W. Forster, Introduction, in 77 Momigliano, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964),
Aby Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan o.c., 1965, p. 25. = Momigliano, Pagine
Antiquity. Contributions to the Cultural Ebraiche, o.c., p. 260-261.
History of the European Renaissance, ed. 78 Gertrud Bing, Foreword, in Lectures.
Gertrud Bing, trans. David Britt, Getty F. Saxl, ed. Gertrud Bing, London, 1957,
Research Institute for the History of Art s.p.
and the Humanities, 1999, p. 1-75, p. 46 79 Gertrud Bing, Fritz Saxl (1890-1948).
n. 142. A Memoir, in Fritz Saxl (1890-1948).
63 Cf. Emily J. Levine, Dreamland of A Volume of Memorial Essays from his
Humanists. Warburg, Cassirer, Panofsky, Friends in England, ed. Donald James
and the Hamburg School, Chicago IL, Gordon, London, 1957, p. 1-46.
2013, p. 275-276. 80 Enriqueta Frankfort, Bing, Gertrud
64 Heise, Persönliche Erinnerungen, o.c., p. 12. (1892-1964), in rev. Oxford Dictionary of
65 Momigliano, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), National Biography, Oxford, 2004; http://
o.c., p. 25. = Momigliano, Pagine Ebraiche, www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31887
o.c., p. 260. (accessed 4.10.2017).
44 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

81 Lee Sorensen, Bing, Gertrud, in Dictio- scholars Erwin Panofsky, Fritz Saxl,
nary of Art historians (website); http:// Gertrud Bing, Hans Liebeschütz, Walter
www.arthistorians.info/bingg (accessed Solmitz, Paul Ruben, Richard Salomon,
4.10.2017). and Edgar Wind were all registered with
82 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 17. Hamburg’s Jewish community.” Levine,
83 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 120. Dreamland, o.c., p. 345 n.67.
84 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 76 n. 17 refers to 99 Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 160.
the indirect allusions to the intricate 100 Ina S. Lorenz, Die jüdische Gemeinde
relationship between Warburg, Saxl and Hamburg 1860-1943. Kaiserreich – Weima-
Bing in the correspondence between Saxl rer Republik – NS-Staat, in Zerstörte
and Warburg. See Aby M. Warburg & Geschichte. Vierhundert Jahre jüdisches
Fritz Saxl, ‘Wanderstraßen der Kultur’. Leben in Hamburg, ed. Ina Lorenz,
Die Aby Warburg-Fritz Saxl Korrespon- Hamburg, 2005, p. 129-171, p. 156. =
denz 1920 bis 1929, ed. Dorothea reprint from Arno Herzig (ed.), Die
McEwan, Munich-Hamburg, 2004. Juden in Hamburg 1590 bis 1990. Wissen-
85 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 76 n. 17. schaftliche Beiträge der Universität
86 Meyer, Aus einem Espace, o.c., p. 15-17. Hamburg zur Ausstellung ‘Vierhundert
87 Letter now in the private archive of Prof. Jahre Juden in Hamburg’, Hamburg, 1991,
John Michael Krois. Meyer & Treml, p. 77-100.
Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 20. 101 Cf. Töchter wohlhabender Eltern besuchten
88 162 East Dulwich Grove, London SE 22. private, christliche Mädchenschulen mit
McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 191. anspruchsvollerem Bildungsangebot. Ursula
89 Meyer & Treml, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 22. Randt, Zur Geschichte des jüdischen Schul-
90 Frankfort, Bing, Gertrud, o.c. wesens in Hamburg (ca. 1780-1942), in
91 Braxandall, Is Durability, o.c., p. 24. Die Juden in Hamburg 1590 bis 1990. Wis-
92 Phyllis Pray Bober, A Life of Learning. senschaftliche Beiträge der Universität
Charles Homer Haskins Lecture for 1995 Hamburg zur Ausstellung ‘Vierhundert
(American Council of Learned Societies Jahre Juden in Hamburg’, ed. Arno
Occasional Paper, No. 30), 29 April 1995; Herzig, Hamburg, 1991, p. 113-130, p. 122.
www.collegeart.org/pdf/PhyllisPray- 102 Heinz Mosche Graupe, Die Entstehung
Bober.pdf (accessed 15.03.2018). des modernen Judentums. Geistesgeschichte
93 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 193. der deutschen Juden 1650-1942, Hamburg,
2
94 WIA, GC, G. Bing to T. Cassirer, 27 1977, p. 347.
August 1948. Meyer & Treml, Gertrud 103 Lorenz, Die jüdische Gemeinde Hamburg,
Bing, o.c., p. 22. o.c., p. 129-132.
95 Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, 104 Lorenz, Die jüdische Gemeinde Hamburg,
o.c., p. 115. o.c., p. 136-137. See also p. 132: Die eigent-
96 Erwin Panofsky, Korrespondenz 1910 bis liche Kernaussage des Hamburger Systems
1968, Band 2. Korrespondenz 1937 bis 1949, lag in der rechtlichen, organisatorischen und
ed. Dieter Wuttke, Wiesbaden, 2003, sogar mitgliedschaftlichen Selbständigkeit
p. 920. der Kultusverbände. Es stand jedem
97 WIA, Gertrud Bing Papers, Box 4, Gemeindemitglied frei, sich einem der Kul-
G. Bing to E. and W. Solmitz, 2 August tusverbände anzuschließen; verpflichtet war
1948. Quoted from Ladwig, Wovon man es hierzu nicht. (…) Dass man in nicht-
nicht sprechen kann, o.c., p. 115. religiöser Form Angehöriger einer jüdischen
98 Like most of Warburg’s associates: Gemeinde sein konnte, war ohne Frage eine
“In addition to Ernst Cassirer, ‘Warburg’ kühne Idee.
 of muses and phantoms 45

105 During the Weimar Republic, only 40 115 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer
of the Jewish citizens in Hamburg Kulturbesitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H.
belonged to one of the three congrega- Swarzenski), Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to
tions mentioned here. The non-religious Hanns Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933].
Jewish citizens often descended from the 116 Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c.,
poorer classes. The wealthier Jewish p. 23-37.
citizens often belonged to the liberal 117 Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c.,
Tempelverband. Lorenz, Die jüdische p. 23.
Gemeinde Hamburg, o.c., p. 150. 118 Jedenfalls ergibt sich für mein Gefühl für
106 Die vierzehn kurzen Jahre der Weimarer den heutigen Juden aus der Notwendigkeit,
Republik gaben den Juden reichlich Gele- zur Aufnahme dieses Schicksals bereit zu
genheit, ihre Bindung an Deutschtum, sein auch die Notwendigkeit, sich zu seinem
Deutschland und deutsche Kultur zu Schicksal zu bekennen, das heißt sich zu
demonstrieren. Avraham Barkai & Paul seinem Judentum zu bekennen. Staatsbi-
Mendes-Flor, Aufbruch und Zerstörung bliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kultur-
(1918-1945), (Deutsch-Jüdische Geschichte in besitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H. Swarzenski),
der Neuzeit, IV), ed. Michael A. Meyer, Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to Hanns
Munich, 1997, p. 154. Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933]. Quoted from
107 Barkai, et al., Aufbruch, o.c., p. 154-156. Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c.,
108 Michels & Schoell-Glass, Gertrud Bing, p. 32.
o.c., p. 33. 119 Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c.,
109 Martin Buber, Jüdische Renaissance, in p. 25-26.
Ost und West, 1, 1901, p. 7-10. 120 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer
110 Hanna Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude Kulturbesitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H.
vertrete, kann ich auch in England oder Swarzenski), Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to
Frankreich sein’. A Letter by Gertrud Bing Hanns Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933]. Quoted
to Hanns Swarzenski of May 1933, in The from Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude ver-
afterlife of the Kulturwissenschaftliche trete’, o.c., p. 32.
Bibliothek Warburg. The emigration and 121 Barkai, et al., Aufbruch, o.c., p. 156.
the early years of the Warburg Institute in 122 “She contrasts this Deutschtümelei with
London, (Vorträge aus dem Warburg-Haus, her own positive idea of Germanness:
12), eds. Uwe Fleckner & Peter Mack, the ideal of culture, education and Bil-
Berlin, 2015, p. 23-37, p. 25. dung that had been such an important
111 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer part of nineteenth-century concepts of
Kulturbesitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H. German nationhood and crucial in
Swarzenski), Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to fostering the process of assimilation, as it
Hanns Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933]. Quoted transcended all differences of ethnicity
from Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude and religion.” Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als
vertrete’, o.c., p. 32. Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 28.
112 See Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Aby 123 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer
Warburg und der Antisemitismus. Kultur- Kulturbesitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H.
wissenschaft als Geistespolitik, Frankfurt, Swarzenski), Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to
1998. Hanns Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933]. Quoted
113 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 139-149. from Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude ver-
114 Archiv MMW & Co, Hamburg. See the trete’, o.c., p. 33.
appendix in McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., 124 The irony of her fate was heightened
p. 285-288. by the fact that Prof. Petsch, Goethe
46 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

specialist and promoter of her disserta- 138 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 161.
tion, turned out to be an active member 139 Gramberg, In Memoriam, o.c., p. 294.
of the NSDAP, and was consequentially 140 WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1,
removed from his position by the British Envelope 1, Naturalisation Certificate
authorities in May 1945. Cf. Christa (September 1946).
Hempel-Küter, Germanistik zwischen 1925 141 S.n., In Memoriam Gertrud Bing. 1892-
und 1955. Studien zur Welt der Wissenschaft 1964, o.c.; Gramberg, In Memoriam, o.c.,
am Beispiel von Hans Pyritz, Berlin, 2000, p. 295; Gombrich, Gertrud Bing, o.c.,
p. 155. p. 10; Heise, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 258.
125 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer 142 Gertrud Bing. Obituary, o.c.
Kulturbesitz, Nachl. 270 (G. u. H. 143 Baxandall, Is Durability, o.c., p. 27.
Swarzenski), Mp. 423, Gertrud Bing to 144 Gertrud Bing, Aby M. Warburg. Vortrag
Hanns Swarzenski, 29.5.[1933]. Quoted von Frau Professor Bing anlässslich der
from Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude ver- feierlichen Aufstellung von Aby Warburgs
trete’, o.c., p. 33. Büste in der Hamburger Kunsthalle am
126 Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., 31. Oktober 1958 mit einer vorausgehenden
p. 29. Ansprache von Senator Dr. Hans H. Bier-
127 WIA, GC, G. Bing to H. Swarzenski, mann-Ratjen, Hamburg, 1958, p. 12. =
9 September 1936. Quoted from Vorholt, Aby M. Warburg. Ausgewählte Schriften
‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 209 und Würdigungen, ed. Dieter Wuttke,
n. 42. Baden-Baden, 1980, p. 455-464.
128 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 145-153. 145 Aby Warburg. Vortrag von Gertrud Bing
129 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 162ff. [1958], in Aby M. Warburg. Ausgewählte
130 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 164.184-185. Schriften und Würdigungen, ed. Dieter
131 WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1, Wuttke, Baden-Baden, 1980, p. 455-464,
Envelope 1. Hamburg Abmeldung. p. 464.
132 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 162. 146 Meyer & Treml, Gertrud Bing, o.c.,
133 WIA, GC, G. Bing to E. Cassirer, 24 p. 22.
April 1936. Quoted from Ladwig, Wovon 147 WIA, Gertrud Bing Papers, Box 4,
man nicht sprechen kann, o.c., p. 113. G. Bing to W. Solmitz, 4 December 1957
134 Gertrud Bing. Obituary, o.c.; Heise, [sic]. Quoted from Ladwig, Wovon man
Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 258; Gramberg, nicht sprechen kann, o.c., p. 116-117.
In Memoriam, o.c., p. 294. Cf. McEwan, 148 Götz, College Bing, o.c., p. 22.
Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 175; Gombrich, Gertrud 149 Steven M. Lowenstein, Paul Mendes-
Bing, o.c., p. 9. Flor, Peter Pulzer & Monika Richarz,
135 Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, Umstrittene Integration 1871-1918, (Deut-
o.c., p. 113. sch-Jüdische Geschichte in der Neuzeit, III),
136 Frankfort, Bing, Gertrud, o.c. Munich, 1997, p. 84-85.
137 WIA, GC, G. Bing to E. Simpson, 150 Götz, College Bing, o.c., p. 22-24.
27 January 1936. Published in Dorothea 151 Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 160.
McEwan, A Tale of One Institute and Two 152 Lescourret, Aby Warburg, o.c., p. 301.
Cities: The Warburg Institute, in German- 153 Lescourret, Aby Warburg, o.c., p. 301.
Speaking Exiles in Great Britain, ed. Ian 154 Michels & Schoell-Glass, Gertrud Bing,
Wallace, (The Yearbook of the Research o.c., p. 29.
Centre for German and Austrian Exile 155 Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 62.
Studies), Amsterdam-New York, 1999, 156 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 114
p. 25–42, p. 31-33. (III, p. 13).
 of muses and phantoms 47

157 WIA, Gertrud Bing Papers, Box 4, G. 176 20 February 1927. Warburg, et al.,
Bing to E. and W. Solmitz, 9 December Tagebuch, o.c., p. 75.
1945. Quoted from Ladwig, Wovon man 177 31 December 1926; 12 and 16 April 1927;
nicht sprechen kann, o.c., p. 114. May 1927; 9 and 11 June 1927; 7 July 1927;
158 Ladwig, Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, 7 September 1927.
o.c., p. 114. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 40, 82, 83,
159 Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 160-161. 88, 98, 99, 100-101, 112, 140.
160 Gertrud Bing, Personen- und Sachver- 178 25 June 1927. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch,
zeichnis, in Vorträge der Bibliothek o.c., p. 103.
Warburg 1923-24, Leipzig-Berlin, 1926, 179 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 121.
p. 252-277; Ead., Personen- und Sachver- 180 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 58, 63
zeichnis, in Vorträge der Bibliothek War- and 66.
burg 1924-25, Leipzig-Berlin, 1927, p. 345f.; 181 April 1927. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c.,
Ead., Personen- und Sachverzeichnis, in p. 81.
Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1925-26, 182 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 117.
Leipzig-Berlin, 1928, p. 203f.; Ead., Perso- 183 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 273.
nen- und Sachverzeichnis, in Vorträge 184 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 345.
der Bibliothek Warburg 1926-27, Leipzig- 185 Levine, PanDora, o.c., p. 771-772; Michels,
Berlin, 1930, p. 209f. Glück, o.c., p. 125.
161 Cf. Yvette Marcus-De Groot, Kunsthisto- 186 Michels, Glück, o.c., p. 126.
rische vrouwen van weleer. De eerste gene- 187 Female biographers are not necessarily
ratie in Nederland voor 1921, Hilversum, kinder to women. By way of illustration,
2003, p. 126. consider the following passage by Marie-
162 Cf. Lescourret, Aby Warburg, o.c., p. 301. Anne Lescourret, commenting on Bing’s
163 Baxandall, Is Durability, o.c., p. 24. appearance: Assez grande, les jambes lour-
164 Frances A. Yates, The Valois tapestries, ed. des sous les bas de coton, les yeux noirs et
Gertrud Bing, London, 1999 (1959), p. x. proéminents derrière des lunettes rondes
165 Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory, métalliques, la mèche sombre et plate en
(Frances A. Yates. Selected Works, III), biais sur le front, le menton légèrement
London-New York, 2007 (1966), p. xiv. prognathe, mise sans élégance, Gertrud Bing
166 Karen Michels, Glück im Unglück? Kunst- semble une incarnation du ‘bas-bleu’. Sur les
historikerinnen im Exil, in Grenzen Über- photos, entre Saxl et Warburg, même en
schreiten. Frauen, Kunst und Exil, eds. virée avec ce dernier en Italie, elle garde son
Ursula Hudson-Wiedemann & Beate sérieux. (…) Rien dans son apparence ne
Schmiedel-Falkenberg, Würzburg, 2005, laisse penser qu’elle aura pu être l’enjeu
p. 123-130, p. 124. d’une rivalité masculine entre Fritz Saxl
167 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 508. (…) et Aby Warburg, dont le goût pour
168 Michels, Glück, o.c., p 124. les femmes est établi. Lescourret, Aby
169 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 186. Warburg, o.c., p. 298-299.
170 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 189. 188 Ernst H. Gombrich, Introduction, in
171 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 291. Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), ed. The War-
Cf. Michels, Glück, o.c., p. 124. burg Institute, London, 1965, p. 1-3, p. 2.
172 Levine, PanDora, o.c., p. 770-772; Levine, 189 Gertrud Bing. Obituary, o.c.
Dreamland, o.c., p. 162. 190 Heise, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 259.
173 Levine, Dreamland, o.c., p. 162. 191 Gombrich, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 7 en 9.
174 Levine, PanDora, o.c., p. 771. 192 In memoriam Gertrud Bing. 1892-1964, o.c.
175 Levine, PanDora, o.c., p. 771. 193 Gramberg, In Memoriam, o.c., p. 294.
48 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

194 J. M. C. Toynbee & Stephen L. Dyson, 208 Georges Didi-Huberman, L’image

Strong [née Sellers], Eugénie (1860–1943), survivante. Histoire de l’art et temps des
in Oxford Dictionary of National Biogra- fantômes selon Aby Warburg, Paris, 2002,
phy, Oxford, 2004; https://doi. p. 28-30.
org/10.1093/ref:odnb/36352 (accessed 209 Marcus-De groot, Kunsthistorische
23.3.2018). vrouwen, o.c., p. 126.
195 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 449. 210 Delio Cantimori, in Gertrud Bing
196 Cf. Michels, Glück, o.c., p. 126. (1892-1964), ed. The Warburg Institute,
197 Cf. Traute Hoffmann, Der erste deutsche London, 1965, p. 6-10, p. 8.
Zonta-Club. Auf den Spuren aussserge- 211 Gombrich, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 11.
wöhnlicher Frauen, Hamburg-Munich, 212 Bing’s love for music was noticed by
2002, 43-50. several colleagues and friends. Edna
198 Michels, Glück, o.c., p. 127. Purdie talks about her love for Schubert
199 Baxandall, Is Durability, o.c., p. 24. and Mahler (Purdie, in Gertrud Bing
200 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 190. (1892-1964), o.c., p. 29-30.). Ernst Gom-
201 Edna Purdie, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1965), brich mentions her youthful ambition to
ed. The Warburg Institute, London, 1965, become a singer (Gombrich, Introduction,
p. 29-30, p. 29. o.c., p. 2.). Her musicality may also
202 Frankfort, Bing, Gertrud, o.c. Bings stern explain her friendship with the composer
demeanour actually frightened Gordon: and conductor Otto Klemperer, who
“But if Saxl alarmed me, Bing frightened wrote a short in memoriam on the occa-
me. She was the image of severity: in sion of her death (Otto Klemperer, in
what seemed a recognizable way; dark Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), ed. The
cropped hair, the endless cigarettes, the Warburg Institute, London, 1965, p. 23.)
dark austere clothes, the use of surnames, 213 Cf. “The Thinking Muse, which signifies
her quickness, the sharpness of her ques- at once ‘source of inspiration’ and
tions.” Gordon, in Gertrud Bing (1892- ‘thinker,’ marks a radical shift in the
1964), o.c., p. 17. traditional philosophical separation
203 Ulrike Wendland, Bing, Gertrud(e), in between muse, female, and thinker, male.
Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger The muses, invoked by philosophers even
Kunsthistoriker im Exil. Leben und Werk prior to the time of Socrates as the
der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolg- source of philosophic inspiration, have
ten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler, ed. been traditionally posited as the ‘other,’
Ulrike Wendland, Munich, 1999, vol. 1, forever outside the activity of philoso-
p. 58. phizing. Portrayed as muses but not as
204 She considered her profession vielmehr philosophers, women have been assumed
als selbstgewählten und selbstbestimmten by the Western tradition to be those who
Ort. Götz, College Bing, o.c., p. 22. do not, or ought not, think.” Jeffner
205 Purdie, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., Allen & Iris Marion Young (eds.),
p. 30. The Thinking Muse. Feminism and
206 Baxandall, Is Durability, o.c., p. 27. Modern French Philosophy, Indianopolis,
207 Gertrud Bing. Obituary, o.c. 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 Selbst-
besinnung 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 never-
theless 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 embo-
diment 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
52 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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.).
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 53

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

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 Not-
wendige 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 (Notwendig-
keit) and freedom, which she researches first in the philosophy of Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and secondly in the aesthetics and in the phi-
losophy 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 philosop-
hical and literary disciplines.218
Bing’s thesis, Der Begriff des Notwendigen bei Lessing. Ein Beitrag zum geistes-
geschichtlichen 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
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 55

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 con-
tributed to her whole outlook upon life. The difficult interlocking of tolerance
and intolerance, of freedom and order, the intricate processes of supporting fee-
ling 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.
56 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 encou-
raged 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 Notwen-
digkeit, 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
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 57

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 concen-
tration 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 deman-
ding 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.
58 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 vervoll-
ständigen den Begriff des Notwendigen besser als eine Erörterung über den Determi-
nismus 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
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 59

In Nathan, Lessing devises another solution to the problem of man’s confron-

tation 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 lite-
rally, 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 discus-
sions 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
60 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 impres-
sion 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
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 61

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 Notwen-
digkeit, zur Aufnahme dieses Schicksals bereit zu sein auch die Notwendig-
keit, 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 acqui-
red 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 experi-
ence 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?
truth and the capriciousness of fortune 63

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.

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

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 Auseinan-

dersetzung between the individual and the Pneuma:

Jetzt (Perugia 3.XI) kann man hinzufügen: nachzuweisen am Substrat der kosmo-
logischen 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 transforma-
tion 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 Mnemo-
syne 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,
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 65

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 bild-
haften 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). Paradoxi-
cally, 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
66 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 67

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

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 representa-
tions 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?
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 69

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.

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

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
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 71

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 Fluß-
götter 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 Fluß-
gott (depressiv) andrerseits als Pole zwischen denen der treuformend eindrucks-
empfindliche 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
72 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

Bannung des Monströsen durch imaginäre Bindung an die Tektonik des Tempels.287
This concisely formulated line of thought has a strong affinity with the above-
mentioned 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 Mnemo-
syne 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 culmina-
ting) in the so-called liberation of the individual – symbolised by Fortuna-
Occasio 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 encoun-
tered 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
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 73

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

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 explora-
tions 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
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 75

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 recon-
ciliation 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 orien-
tation 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.
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 77

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.

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

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 representa-
tions 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 transla-
tion 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 sixteen-
th-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 sixteen-
th-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.
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 79

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 enig-
matic 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 under-
standing 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 depen-
dent 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
80 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 Mnemo-
syne atlas (see 3.3.). Doni did not, in any way, describe the self-liberating
Renaissance man who, in navigating between prosperity and adversity, grabs
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 81

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

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 oppo-
site.”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,
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 83

Fig. 19. Half-title page from Doni, La Moral Fig. 20. Half-title page from Doni, La Moral
Filosofia (1552). From: Gertrud Bing, Nugae Filosofia (1552). From: Gertrud Bing, Nugae
circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, circa Veritatem. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni,
in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, in Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938,
p. 304-312, Pl. 46c 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.
84 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

214 Hempel-Küter, Germanistik, o.c., p. 300. 231 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
215 Hempel-Küter, Germanistik, o.c., p. 143. p. 100.
216 Robert Petsch, Freiheit und Notwendig- 232 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
keit in Schillers Dramen, (Goethe- und p. 43.
Schiller-studien, 1), Munich, 1905. 233 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
217 Meyer & Treml, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 101-122.
p. 21-22. 234 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
218 Cf. Michels & Schoell-Glass, Die Litera- p. 123-132.
tur- und Kulturwissenschaftlerin, o.c., p. 31. 235 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
219 Unlike Meyer and Treml, I believe that p. 131-132.
the subject of Bing’s dissertation is sig- 236 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
nificant to understand her later scientific p. 122.
project. Wollte man aus der Promotion 237 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
Hinweise für Bings spätere Interessengebiete p. 132.
herausdestillieren, so wird man sich schwer 238 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
tun. Meyer & Treml, Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 131. Lessing’s Nathan der Weise was,
p. 21. in addition, very popular with assimilated
220 Purdie, in Gertrud Bing (1892-1964), o.c., Jews in Germany because it enabled
p. 30. them to express their desire for religious
221 WIA, GC, G. Bing to F. Saxl, 29 August tolerance and a universal ethics. See
1922. part I, 1.3.
222 WIA, GC, G. Bing to A. Warburg, 5 July 239 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
1926. p. 130-131.
223 WIA, GC, A. Warburg to G. Bing, 7 July 240 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
1926. p. 130.
224 Die Wahl des Besten, die jeder Schöpfung 241 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
zugrunde liegt, bedeutet nichts anderes als p. 130.
die moralische Gewissheit, dass die kausal- 242 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
gesetzlich ablaufende Natur einer Annähe- p. 125.
rung an die sittlichen Formen entgegengeht. 243 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 129. It is striking how strongly Bing
p. 18. draws on metaphors used in the biblical
225 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., and Christian tradition to elaborate this
p. 14-18. point, e.g., the parable of the seed and
226 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., the different soils: Der unfreie Mensch
p. 18. empfängt von Gott selbst die Kraft zum
227 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., wollen und zum Handeln, wenn er selbst
p. 14-18. ‘will’. Aber dieses wollen ist eben keine
228 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., Aktivität, denn jede Tat ist determiniert,
p. 28-32. sondern es ist eine Bereitschaft, eine Ent-
229 [ J]e mehr diese gesetzliche Form zum Aus- spannung, eine Offenheit des Herzens, das
druck kommt, desto mehr überzeugt uns ein geackerte Land, das bereitet ist, den Samen
Geschehen, desto notwendiger wirkt es, desto zu empfangen. In dieser Willigkeit, das
wahrscheinlicher ist es, desto algemeinere Schicksal seiner Unfreiheit und Schwäche
Geltung verschafft es sich. Bing, Der Begriff auf sich zu nehmen, erreicht der Mensch
des Notwendigen, o.c., p. 31. seine höchste sittliche Leistung.
230 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c., 244 Bing, Der Begriff des Notwendigen, o.c.,
p. 44-100. p. 132.
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 85

245 Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce homo. Warum 248 Fortuna is also a favourite subject of the
ich so klug bin, § 10, in Friedrich Warburgian school, as demonstrated
Nietzsche, Digital Critical Edition of the by the following publications: Alfred
Complete Works and Letters, ed. G. Colli Doren, Fortuna im Mittelalter und in der
& M. Montinari, Berlin-New York, Renaissance, in Vorträge der Bibliothek
1967-, ed. Paolo D’Iorio; http://www. Warburg 1922-23, 2, 1, 1924, p. 79-144;
nietzschesource.org/eKGWB/ Ernst Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos in
EH-Klug-10 (accessed 8.6.2018). der Philosophie der Renaissance, (Studien
246 Bing, Vortrag, o.c., p. 464. der Bibliothek Warburg, 10), Berlin-
247 Aby Warburg’s fascination with Fortuna Leipzig, 1926; Rudolf Wittkower,
is also evident from his correspondence Patience and Chance. The Story of a Politi-
with Alfred Doren on 31 March 1923 on cal Emblem, in Journal of the Warburg
the occasion of his lecture at the K.B.W. Institute, 1, 2, 1937, p. 171-177; Rudolf
on 24 March 1923. In October of that Wittkower, Chance, Time and Virtue, in
same year, Warburg prepared a Nachtrag Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938,
for this lecture, which Gertrud Bing kept p. 313-321; Erwin Panofsky, ‘Good Gov-
in a, meanwhile lost, folder with the title ernment or Fortune?’ The Iconography of a
Zu Fortuna Eigenes Kreuzlingen Newly-Discovered Composition by Rubens’,
(wichtig!). (Aby M. Warburg, ‘Per mons- in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, lxviii, 1966,
tra ad sphaeram.’ Sternglaube und Bilddeu- p. 307-326; Ernst H. Gombrich, The
tung. Vortrag in Gedenken an Franz Boll Earliest Description of Bosch’s Garden of
und andere Schriften 1923 bis 1925, ed. Delight, in Journal of the Warburg and
Davide Stimili, in collaboration with Courtauld Institutes, 30, 1967, p. 403-406,
Claudia Wedepohl, (Kleine Schriften des esp. p. 406.
Warburg Institute London und das Warburg 249 Aby M. Warburg, Francesco Sassettis
Archivs im Warburg Haus Hamburg, 3), letztwillige Verfügung, in Kunstwissen-
Munich-Hamburg, 2008, p. 12). Warburg schaftliche Beiträge August Schmarsow
also wrote about Fortuna to Edwin gewidmet, ed. Heinrich Weizsäcker,
Seligman (17 August 1927) and to Adolph Leipzig, 1907, p. 129-152.
Goldschmitt (11 April 1929). See: Alice 250 In a letter to Warburg, Saxl wrote: von da
Barale & Laura Squillaro (eds.), Regesto ab ist jede Arbeit immer mehr nicht bloß ein
di testi inediti e rari dal Warburg Institute historisches, sondern ein menschliches Doku-
Archive sul tema della Fortuna, in ment. WIA, GC, F. Saxl to A. Warburg,
Engramma, 92, 2011; http://www. 1 April 1921. Quoted in Warburg, ‘Per
engramma.it/eOS/index.php?id_ monstra ad sphaeram, o.c., p. 8. See also
articolo=1651VIII (accessed 8.06.2018). Stephanie Heremans, Warburg’s Fortuna.
The fascination with Fortuna even tran- An Enduring Fascination and Methodolog-
scended generations. Warburg’s son, ical ‘Turn’, in IKON: Journal of Icono-
Max Adolph, also wrote a treatise on this graphic Studies, 13, 2020, (in press).
topic: “In 1934, he received a teacher’s 251 Didi-Huberman, L’image survivante, o.c.,
diploma from Hamburg University for a p. 506.
Latin paper analyzing the representation 252 Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c.,
of the Goddess Fortuna in the arts and p. 31.
literature – a quintessential Aby Warburg 253 Vorholt, ‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c.,
topic.” Ron Chernow, The Warburgs. p. 32-33.
The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a 254 In my opinion, Hanna Vorholt com-
Remarkable Jewish Family, New York, ments correctly on this statement in light
1993, p. 509. of Bing’s dissertation: “To her, the full
86 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

acceptance of what was imposed upon Bing reads Apotheosis and Afterlife (1915)
the individual did not imply passive by Eugénie Strong in this period. War-
submission, but could be turned into an burg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c. p. 420 (VII,
act of self-determination. (…) Bing’s p. 201). The ascension was also the sub-
emphasis on the liberating force of ject of a lecture series at the K.B.W. in
accepting one’s own destiny.” Vorholt, 1928-1929: see Vorträge der Bibliothek
‘Das was ich als Jude vertrete’, o.c., p. 26-27. Warburg 1928–1929, 8, Uber die Vorstel-
255 Die Welt der Kräfte erleidet keinen Still- lungen von der Himmelsreise der Seele.
stand (…) Mensch! Dein ganzes Leben 262 The concept of Denkraum first arises in
wird wie eine Sanduhr immer wieder Warburg’s text Heidnisch-antike Weissa-
umgedreht werden und immer wieder gung in Wort und Bild zu Luthers Zeiten
auslaufen — eine große Minute Zeit da- (1920). He explains the term in light of
zwischen, bis alle Bedingungen, aus denen astrology: Logik, die den Denkraum –
du geworden bist, im Kreislaufe der Welt, zwischen Mensch und Objekt durch begriff-
wieder zusammenkommen. Friedrich lich sondernde Bezeichnung schafft, und
Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente Früh- Magie, die eben diesen Denkraum durch
jahr–Herbst 1881, 11[148], in Friedrich abergläubisch zusammenziehende – ideelle
Nietzsche, Digital Critical Edition of the oder praktische – Verknüpfung von Mensch
Complete Works and Letters, ed. G. Colli und Objekt wieder zerstört, beobachten wir
& M. Montinari, Berlin-New York, im weissagenden Denken der Astrologie
1967-, ed. Paolo D’Iorio; http://www. noch als einheitlich primitives Gerät, mit
nietzschesource.org/eKGWB/ dem der Astrologe messen und zugleich
NF-1881,11[148] (accessed 8.6.2018). zaubern kann. Warburg, Gesammelte
256 Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Schriften, o.c., II, p. 491.
Böse: § 146. Erste Veröff. 04/08/1886, in 263 Marianne Schuller (Darstellung des Unge-
Friedrich Nietzsche, Digital Critical dachten. Zum konstellativen Verfahren in
Edition of the Complete Works and Letters, Aby Warburgs Mnemosyne-Atlas, in MLN,
ed. G. Colli & M. Montinari, Berlin- 126, 3, Constellations / Konstellationen,
New York, 1967, ed. Paolo D’Iorio; http:// 2011, p. 581-589, p. 586-587) compares the
www.nietzschesource.org/eKGWB/ Bilderatlas to the shifting constellation
JGB-146 (accessed 8.6.2018). of a starry sky.
257 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 352 264 The importance of Giordano Bruno for
(VI, p. 153). Bing and Warburg during their trip to
258 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 352 Italy has been described in detail by
(VI, p. 153). Maurizio Ghelardi. See Aby Warburg,
259 See also Warburg, Mit Bing, o.c., p. 37-38: Miroirs de faille. A Rome avec Giordano
Gemeint ist die moderne Vorstellung von der Bruno et Eduard Manet, 1928-29, ed.
unendlichen Ausdehnung des Raums, die Maurizio Ghelardi, trans. Sacha
sich nach Warburgs Beobachtung in der Zilberfarb, Paris, 2011, esp. p. 7-25 and
Renaissance abzuzeichnen beginnt. p. 153-204.
Gemeinsam versucht man, Belege für diesen 265 Wir mussen Giordano Bruno lesen.
Vorstellungswandel zu finden, wozu auch Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 350
die Decke des Anatomischen Theaters in (VI, p. 145). In their confrontation with
Bologna gehört. Bruno, they are guided by the article of
260 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 345 Leonardo Olschki, Giordano Bruno, in
(VI, p. 129) and p. 348 (VI, p. 137). Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literatur-
261 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 418 wissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 2, 1924,
(VII, p. 195). It is no coincidence that p. 1–79.
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 87

266 Johson, Memory, o.c., p. 219. dieser an und sprechen sehnsuchtsvoll von
267 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 457 lastender Noch-Körperlichkeit, die eben das
(VIII, p. 49). Schicksal der Nicht-Olympier ist. Aby
268 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 456 Warburg, Bilderreihen und Ausstellungen,
(VIII, p. 45-47). eds. Uwe Fleckner & Isabella Woldt,
269 WIA, GC, A.Warburg to KBW, 21 May (Gesammelte Schriften, Zweite Abteilung,
1929. Quoted from Johnson, Memory, o.c., Band II. 2), Berlin, 2012, p. 373.
p. 206-207. 282 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 422
270 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 215. (VII, p. 211).
271 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 386 283 Bei Manet nur scheinbare Stockung. Aus-
(VII, p. 75). druckswertbildung Polarität des energeti-
272 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 202-203. schen Problems Maenade von der (Kopf-
273 Quoted in Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 201. jägerin) bis zum sinnige Flußgott.
274 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 202. Eigentlich die Schizophrenie im Spiegel der
275 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 203. Stilbewegung. Manisch-depressiv die Pola-
276 Quoted in Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 223. rität. Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 429
277 Johnson refers in this regard to the (VII, p. 247).
almost ‘eucharistic’ connotations of 284 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 430
Warburg’s description. Johnson, Memory, (VII, p. 251).
o.c., p. 223. 285 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, o.c., p. 429-430
278 Ernst Cassirer preceded them in this (VII, 249).
double orientation. Cassirer, Individuum 286 Warburg, Per monstra ad sphaeram, o.c.,
und Kosmos, o.c. is dedicated to Warburg. p. 25-26.
279 Alice Barale draws attention to this 287 WIA, III. 12.3., Bl (38). Quoted in War-
second focus of the Italian journey. Alice burg, Per monstra ad sphaeram, o.c., p. 26.
Barale, Discesa nello spazio misterico e 288 Bings active contribution to the Atlas is
‚spaccio delle tenebre‘: l‘ultimo viaggio di highlighted in a letter by Warburg: Mit
Warburg in Italia, in Engramma, 80, 2010: Hilfe des selbstlosen Eifers von Frl. Dr.
http://www.engramma.it/eOS/index. Bing ist es mir gelungen, das Material für
php?id_articolo=197580_barale_abstract einen Bilder-Atlas zusammenzubringen, in
(accessed 8.6.2018). dem man an seinen Bilderreihen die Funk-
280 Mnemosyne Atlas 55; http://www. tion der vorgeprägten antikisierenden Aus-
engramma.it/eOS/core/frontend/eos_ druckswerte bei der Darstellung inneren
atlas_index.php?id_tavola=1055 und äusseren bewegten Lebens ausgebreitet
281 In a text that Warburg dictated to Bing sieht und der zugleich die Grundlage sein
during their Italian journey, Warburg soll für die Entwicklung einer neuen
described the scene as follows: Freilich: Theorie der Funktion des menschlichen
die übermächtige Theophanie der Licht- Bildgedächtnisses. WIA, A. Warburg to
gewalten am Himmel hat sich nicht ver- K. Vossler, 12 October 1929. Quoted from
zogen, und die terrestrisch gebundenen, Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 221.
lagernden Halbgötter verdanken eben ihre 289 Bing, Gertrud. WIA, III.104.1. Über-
ästhetisch überzeugende Eigenschwere der schriften: Synopsis of Plates (“last ver-
Prägekraft des kultischen Phobos. In den sion”), 1929–1930. Johnson, Memory, o.c.,
Berg und an das Flußufer gebannt richten p. 10.
sie sich, sehnend oder fürchtend, zu einer 290 Notiz von Gertrud Bing according to the
lichten Höhe auf, der sie nicht angehören Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel
dürfen. Ihre Augen, gänzlich absorbiert von 48, in Aby Warburg, Mnemosyne Bilder-
der terriblen Gotteserscheinung, gehören atlas, Karlsruhe, 2016, s.p.
88 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

291 I lack room to give a detailed discussion Kreislauf zwischen bildhafter und zeichen-
of the line of thought that underlies this mässiger Kosmologik bedeutet, deren
panel. A detailed analysis can be found in Zulänglichkeit oder Versagen als orientie-
Fortuna nel Rinascimento. Una lettura rendes geistiges Instrument eben das Schick-
di tavola 48 del Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, sal der menschlichen Kultur bedeutet.
ed. Seminario Mnemosyne, in [A2] Dem zwischen religiöser und mathe-
Engramma, 92, 2011; http://www. matischer Weltanschauung schwankenden
engramma.it/eOS/index.php?id_ künstlerischen Menschen kommt nun das
articolo=1649 (accessed 8.6.18); Florian Gedächtnis sowohl der Kollektivpersönlich-
Fuchs, Panel 48, Guided Pathways keit wie des Individuums in einer ganz
in Mnemosyne. Meanderings through eigentümlichen Weise zur Hilfe: nicht ohne
Aby Warburg’s Atlas, Cornell Univer- weiteres Denkraum schaffend, wohl aber an
sity, 2013; http://www.warburg.library. den Grenzpolen des psychischen Verhaltens
cornell.edu (accessed 8.6.2018); and die Tendenz zur ruhigen Schau oder orgia-
Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel stischen Hingabe verstärkend. Es setzt die
48, o.c. unverlierbare Erbmasse mnemisch ein,
292 Fortuna nel Rinascimento, o.c.; aber nicht mit primär schützender Tendenz,
Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel sondern es greift die volle Wucht der leiden-
48, o.c.; Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 106. schaftlich-phobischen, im religiösen Myste-
293 Warburg, et al., Tagebuch, p. 423 rium erschütterten gläubigen Persönlichkeit
(VII p. 217.) im Kunstwerk mitstilbildend ein, wie
294 Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel andererseits aufzeichnende Wissenschaft das
48, o.c.; Fortuna nel Rinascimento, o.c. rhythmische Gefüge behält und weitergibt,
295 Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, o.c., I, in dem die monstra der Phantasie zu
p. 151. zukunftsbestimmenden Lebensführern
296 WIA, GC, A. Warburg to A. Gold- werden.
schmidt, 11 April 1929. See Barale & Aby Warburg, Mnemosyne. Einleitung
Squillaro, Regesto, o.c. (1929), typescript by Gertrud Bing, WIA,
297 Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel 102.1.1 Aby Warburg, Mnemosyne. Einlei-
48, o.c. tung. Introduzione al Bilderatlas (1929),
298 Fuchs, Panel 48, o.c. ed. and trans. Maurizio Ghelardi, in
299 Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, o.c., I, Engramma, 138, 2016; http://www.
p. 148. engramma.it/eOS/index.php?id_
300 Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel articolo=2991 (accessed 8.6.2018).
48, o.c.; Fuchs, Panel 48, o.c. 303 Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, o.c., I,
301 Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel p. 151.
48, o.c. 304 See for example the first page of part
302 [A1] Bewusstes Distanzschaffen zwischen VIII, dated 28 April 1929. Warburg, et al.,
sich und der Aussenwelt darf man wohl Tagebuch, o.c., p. 446 (VIII, p. 1).
als Grundakt menschlicher Zivilisation 305 Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel
bezeichnen; dieser Zwischenraum das 48, o.c.; Fuchs, Panel 48, o.c.
Substrat künstlerischer Gestaltung, so sind 306 Fuchs, Panel 48, o.c.
die Vorbedingungen erfüllt, dass dieses 307 Fuchs, Panel 48, o.c.
Distanzbewusstsein zu einer sozialen 308 Johnson, Memory, o.c., p. 107.
Dauerfunktion werden kann die durch den 309 Johson, Memory, o.c., p. 107.
Rhythmus vom Einschwingen in die Mate- 310 Forschungsgruppe Mnemosyne, Zu Tafel
rie und Ausschwingen zur Sophrosyne jenen 48, o.c.
 truth and the capriciousness of fortune 89

311 It is therefore not surprising that 317 Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 197-202.
Gertrud Bing wrote the following in her 318 Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 204.
foreword to the Gesammelte Schriften 319 Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 215.
from 1932: Indem er (…) die Bildformen 320 Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 217.
des ‘bewegten Lebens’, untersucht, gewinnt 321 This was linked to the reception history
er seine Vorstellung von der psychische Pola- of Psalm 84:12, which, since its depiction
rität der Menschen dieses Übergangszeital- in the Protestant context, had been
ters, die zwischen Unterwerfung unter linked to the theme: veritas de terra orta
das Schicksal und Selbstbestimmung einen est. Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 202 and 217.
‘charaktervollen Ausgleich’ suchten. Bing, 322 McEwan, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 171, n. 705:
Vorwort, o.c., p. xii. “Essays Presented to Fritz Saxl on the
312 Bing, Vortrag, o.c., p. 463. Completion of his 25th Year at the War-
313 Gertrud Bing, A.M. Warburg, in Journal burg Institute. Dec. 1937. Typoskriptorig-
of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 28, inal im Warburg Institute, Bibliotheks-
1965, p. 299-313, p. 310. signatur CFC 365.E77ms, davon die
314 In a series of essays collected under the folgenden in Journal of the Warburg
title Philosophy and History, the editors Institute, 1937, I: Roger Hinks, ‘Master of
Klibansky and Paton, together with the Animals’; Ernst Kitzinger, ‘The Story of
various authors, pay tribute to Ernst Joseph on a Coptic Tapestry’; Ursula
Cassirer’s central research topic; the Hoff, ‘Meditations in Solitude’; Jean
development of symbolic thinking Seznec, ‘Youth, Innocence and Death’;
throughout cultural history. The War- Gertrud Bing, ‘Nugae Circa Veritatem’;
burg school is prominently present in Anthony Blunt, ‘Poussin’s Notes on
this collection, with texts written by Painting’; Ernst H. Gombrich, ‘Goethe’s
Panofsky and Wind, in addition to Saxl’s ‚Zueignung‘ und Benivieni’s ‚Amore‘’;
contribution. In their foreword, the edi- Adelheid Heimann, ‘The Six Days of
tors justify the diversity of contributions Creation in a Twelfth Century Manu-
by means of a quote from Nicholas script’; Francis Wormald, ‘The Crucifix
Cusanus, who is incidentally one of the and the Balance’; Enriquetta Harris,
central figures in Cassirers Individuum ‘Mary in the Burning Bush: Nicolas
und Kosmos from 1927: Una veritas in Froment’s Triptych in Aix-en-Provence’;
variis signis varie resplendit. (Philosophy George Clutton, ‘Two Early Representa-
and History. The Ernst Cassirer Festschrift, tions of Lutheranism in France’; W. S.
eds. Raymond Klibansky & Herbert J. Heckscher, ‘Was this the Face ...?’;
Paton, New York-London, 1963 (1936), Rudolf Wittkower, ‘Chance, Time, and
p. vii-viii). Virtue’; Edgar Wind, ‘Charity’; Charles
315 Fritz Saxl, Veritas Filia Temporis, in Phi- Mitchell, ‘Poussin’s ,Flight into Egypt‘’.”
losophy and History. The Ernst Cassirer 323 C. T. Lewis & C. Short, A Latin Dictio-
Festschrift, eds. Raymond Klibansky & nary, Oxford, 1879.
Herbert J. Paton, New York-London, 324 In a very subtle way, Doni’s tribute to
1963, (1936), p. 197-222, p. 197. In her Marcolino is therefore a reflection of
memoires on Saxl, Bing stated that this Bing’s tribute to Saxl, who in his 1936
text was the first work in which Saxl text took Marcolini’s printer’s mark
incorporated English sources (about as the starting point for his line of
Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I and Newton). reasoning. Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 197-199.
Bing, Fritz Saxl, o.c., p. 28. 325 Gertrud Bing, Nugae circa Veritatem.
316 Saxl, Veritas, o.c., p. 200. Notes on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal
90 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

of the Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304- 329 “The mask is Doni’s means of hiding the
312, p. 310. Or: “They are postulates of wounds inflicted by the slings and arrows
practical philosophy. The lack of discrim- of outrageous fortune. It enables him to
ination which allows Truth, i.e. true play his rôle [sic], to transform himself
merit, to become obscured by calumny into the characters which fate expects
and deceit, corresponds to the despotism him to be.” Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 310.
of Fortuna. Man is powerless before the 330 Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 310.
adversities of fate, and his only hope is of 331 Donald Gordon writes: “Her capacity for
vindication in the course of time or by scorn was undiminished, though it had
a stroke of good luck.” Fortuna is called been increasingly linked with an appreci-
to the tribunal to justify herself. Bing, ation of the absurd, the simply comic,
Nugae, o.c., p. 307. in human behavior.” Gordon, in Gertrud
326 The woodcarving depicts Fortuna, seated Bing (1892-1964), o.c., p. 18. Otto
on a globe, blindfolded and with a Klemperer mentions her humour as well:
billowing forelock. The public in her Ihre grosse Hilfsbereitschaft, ihr feiner Takt
presence is unfavourably disposed und ihr Humor werden mir unvergesslich
towards her. “She sits like a defendant bleiben. Klemperer, in Gertrud Bing
before the court of the disillusioned.” (1892-1964), o.c., p. 23.
Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 307. 332 Gordon, in Gertrud Bing, o.c., p. 21.
327 Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 308. 333 Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 311.
328 Bing, Nugae, o.c., p. 309. 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 inter-
space (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,
94 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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 pendu-
lum 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 ‘suppor-
ting 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 never-
ending 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. Inter-
disziplinäres 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. Portrait of Gertrud Bing. London, The Warburg Institute Archive

Fig. 2. Aby Warburg, ca. 1925. From: E.H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography,
Oxford, 1986 (1970)
Fig 3. Gertrud Bing at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, 1927. London, The Warburg Institute
Archive
Fig. 4. Gertrud Bing and Aby Warburg in Orvieto, 14 March 1929. London, The Warburg Insti-
tute Archive
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
Fig. 6. Fritz Saxl in the Library at Hamburg. From: Fritz Saxl (1890-1948). A Volume of Memo-
rial Essays from his Friends in England, ed. D.J. Gordon, London, 1957, Pl. 2
Fig. 7. Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800-1882), Lavater and Lessing Visit Moses Mendelssohn,
1856. Berkeley, CA, Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life
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
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
Fig. 10. Anna Rosina Lisiewska de Gasc (1713-1783), Portrait of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing,
ca. 1767-1768. Halberstadt, Gleimhaus
Fig. 11. Detail of the sculpted ceiling of the Teatro Anatomico dell’Archiginnasio in Bologna. Bologna,
Archivio storico dell’Università di Bologna
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
Fig. 13. Fresco depicting the tauroctony. Capua, Mithraeum of the Santa Maria Capua Vetere
Fig. 14. Gertrud Bing sitting before Warburg’s panel design at the Palace Hotel in Rome, 1929.
London, The Warburg Institute Archive
Fig. 15. Éduard Manet (1832-1883), Déjeuner sur l’herbe, 1863. Paris, Musée d’Orsay
Fig. 16. Tafel 48 from the Mnemosyne Bilderatlas. From: Aby Warburg. Der Bilderatlas Mnemo-
syne, eds. Martin Warnke & Claudia Brink, (Gesammelte Schriften. Aby Warburg, 2, II,
1 ed. Horst Bredekamp, et al.), Berlin, 2008
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
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
98 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

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
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
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nischen Antike. Kulturwissenschaftliche
WIA, Gertrud Bing Bequest. Box 1, Envelope Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen
1. Hamburg Abmeldung. Renaissance, (A. Warburg. Gesammelte
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1. Naturalisation Certificate (September oration with Fritz Rougemont, 2 vols.,
1946). Leipzig-Berlin, 1932.
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2. Draft of letter to Eric Warburg 2 Decem- wissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg mit
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WIA, GC, G. Bing to F. Saxl, 29 August 1922. (Aby Warburg. Gesammelte Schriften. Studi-
WIA, GC, G. Bing to A. Warburg, 14 June enausgabe, VII), eds. Karen Michels &
1924. Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Berlin, 2001.
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1929. Gedenken an Franz Boll und andere Schriften
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December 1929. ration with Claudia Wedepohl, (Kleine
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Sacha Zilberfarb, Paris, 2011. Hamburg, 1958, p. 12. = Aby M. Warburg,
WARBURG, Aby M., Bilderreihen und Ausstel- Ausgewählte Schriften und Würdigungen,
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Woldt, (Gesammelte Schriften, Zweite Abtei- p. 455-464.
lung, Band II. 2), Berlin, 2012. BING, Gertrud, Saxl, Fritz, in Dictionary of
WARBURG, Aby M., Fragmente zur Aus- National Biography 1941–50, eds. L.G.
druckskunde, eds. Ulrich Pfisterer & Hans Wickham Legg & E.T. Williams, London,
Christian Hönes, (Aby Warburg. Gesam- 1959, p. 761–762.
melte Schriften, IV), Berlin, 2015. BING, Gertrud, Aby M. Warburg, in Rivista
storica italiana, 72, 1, 1960, p. 100-113.
Works by Gertrud Bing BING, Gertrud, A. M. Warburg, in Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 28, 1965,
Dissertation p. 299-313.
BING, Gertrud, Introduzione, in Aby Warburg,
BING, Gertrud, Der Begriff des Notwendigen bei La Rinascita del Paganesimo Antico. Con-
Lessing. Ein Beitrag zum geistesgeschichtli- tributi alla storia della cultura, ed. Gertrud
chen Problem Leibniz-Lessing, unpublished Bing, trans. Emma Cantimori, Firenze,
doctoral dissertation, Hamburg, 1921. 1966, p. IX-XXXI.

Publications As Editor

BING, Gertrud, The Warburg Institute, in The BING, Gertrud, Personen- und Sachverzeichnis,
Library Association Record. Fourth Series, 1, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1923-24,
8, 1934, p. 262-266. Leipzig-Berlin, 1926, p. 252-277.
BING, Gertrud, Comenius in England, in Neue BING, Gertrud, Personen- und Sachverzeichnis,
Zürcher Zeitung, 1935. in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1924-25,
BING, Gertrud, Nugae circa Veritatem. Notes Leipzig-Berlin, 1927, p. 345f.
on Anton Francesco Doni, in Journal of the BING, Gertrud, Personen- und Sachverzeichnis,
Warburg Institute, 1, 4, 1938, p. 304-312. in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1925-26,
BING, Gertrud, The Apocalypse Block-Books and Leipzig-Berlin, 1928, p. 203f.
Their Manuscript Models, in Journal of the BING, Gertrud, Personen- und Sachverzeichnis,
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 5, 1942, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1926-27,
p. 143-158. Leipzig-Berlin, 1930, p. 209f.
BING, Gertrud, Fritz Saxl (1890-1948). A Mem- BING, Gertrud (ed.), Die Erneuerung der heid-
oir, in Fritz Saxl (1890-1948). A Volume of nischen Antike. Kulturwissenschaftliche
Memorial Essays from his Friends in Eng- Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen
land, ed. Donald James Gordon, London, Renaissance, (A. Warburg. Gesammelte
1957, p. 1-46. Schriften, 1-2), in collaboration with Fritz
BING, Gertrud, Aby M. Warburg. Vortrag von Rougemont, 2 vols., Leipzig-Berlin, 1932.
Frau Professor Bing anläßlich der feierlichen BING, Gertrud, Vorwort, in Die Erneuerung der
Aufstellung von Aby Warburgs Büste in der heidnischen Antike. Kulturwissenschaftliche
Hamburger Kunsthalle am 31. Oktober 1958 Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen
mit einer vorausgehenden Ansprache von Renaissance, (A. Warburg. Gesammelte
 bibliography 101

Schriften, 1), ed. Gertrud Bing, in collabo- Bing, Gertrud, in Treccani. Enciclopedie online;
ration with Fritz Rougemont, Leip- http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ger-
zig-Berlin, 1932, vol. 1, p. XI-XIX. trud-bing/ (accessed 4.10.2017).
BING, Gertrud, Register, in Die Erneuerung der Bing, Gertrud(e), in Deutsches Literaturlexikon.
heidnischen Antike. Kulturwissenschaftliche Das 20. Jahrhundert. Band 2: Bauer – Ose –
Beiträge zur Geschichte der europäischen Björnson, eds. Wilhelm Kosch et al., Bern-
Renaissance, (A. Warburg. Gesammelte Munich, 2001, p. 656-657.
Schriften, 2), ed. Gertrud Bing, in colla- Bing, Gertrude, in Biographisches Handbuch der
boration with Fritz Rougemont, Leip- deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933-1945,
zig-Berlin, 1932, vol. 2, p. 669-725. ed. Institut für Zeitgeschichte / Research
BING, Gertrud (ed.), Aby M. Warburg, A Foundation for Jewish Immigration, vol. 2,
Lecture on Serpent Ritual, trans. W. F. Munich, 1999, p. 110.
Mainland, in Journal of the Warburg Insti- Bing, Gertrude, Prof., in Kurzbiographie zur
tute, 2, 4, 1939, p. 277-292. Geschichte der Juden. 1918-1945, ed. Joseph
BING, Gertrud (ed.), Lectures. F. Saxl, London, Walk, Munich, 1988, p. 35.
2 vols., 1957. FRANKFORT, Enriqueta, Bing, Gertrud (1892-
BING, Gertrud, Foreword, in Lectures. F. Saxl, 1964), in rev. Oxford Dictionary of National
ed. Gertrud Bing, London, 1957, vol. 1, s.p. Biography, Oxford, 2004; http://www.
BING, Gertrud (ed.), Studies of the Warburg 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
Institute, 21 (1957) to 25 (1960), 27 (1962) and (accessed 4.10.2017).
28 (1963). Gertrud Bing, in Die Zeit, 29, 17 July 1964; http://
BING, Gertrud (ed.), Oxford-Warburg Studies, www.zeit.de/1964/29?wt_zmc=fix.int.
I (1963) to IV (1966). zonpme.zeitde.wall_abo.premium.packshot.
cover.zear&utm_medium=fix&utm_
As Translator source=zeitde_zonpme_int&utm_cam-
paign=wall_abo&utm_content=premium_
FRANKFORT, Henri, The Archetype in Analytical packshot_cover_zear (accessed 30.06.2018).
Psychology and the History of Religion, trans. Gertrud Bing. Obituary, in The Times, 6 juli
Gertrud Bing, in Journal of the Warburg and 1964, in Obituaries from the Times 1961-1970,
Courtauld Institutes, 21, 3, 4, 1958, p. 166-178. ed. Frank C. Roberts, Reading, 1975, p. 76.
SAXL, Fritz, Veritas Filia Temporis, trans. D.V. GOMBRICH, Ernst H., Gertrud Bing zum
Thompson & Gertrud Bing, in Philosophy Gedenken, in Jahrbuch der Hamburger
and History. Essays presented to Ernst Kunstsammlungen, 10, 1965, p. 7-12.
Cassirer, eds. Raymond Klibansky & Her- GRAMBERG, Werner, In Memoriam Gertrud
bert J. Paton, Oxford, 1963 (1936), p. 197-222. Bing, in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen
Institutes in Florenz, 11, 4, 1965, p. 293-295.
In Memoriams and Biographical Notes about HEISE, Carl Georg, Gertrud Bing + 3 juli 1964,
Gertrud Bing in Kunstchronik, 17, 1964, p. 258-259.
In Memoriam Gertrud Bing. 1892-1964, in Jour-
Bing, Gertrud. Identity Statement, in Archives in nal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes,
London and the M25 Area; http://www. 27, 1964, [p. 1-2].
aim25.com/cgi-bin/vcdf/detail?coll_ MOMIGLIANO, Arnaldo, Gertrud Bing (1892-
id=8604&inst_id=108&nv1=search&nv2= 1964), in Pagine Ebraiche, ed. Silvia Berti,
(accessed 24.3.2018). Rome, 2016, p. 259-263.
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 Index Nominum

B H
Bachrach, Mrs., 15-16 Heise, Carl G., 13, 17
Baert, Barbara, 93
Barkai, Avraham, 25-26 I
Baxandall, Michael, 3, 33, 37, 39 Ibsen, Henrik, 53, 63, 69, 75, 77, 82
Bienenfeld, Elise, 19
Binswanger, Ludwig, 8 J
Boll, Franz, 71 Johnson, Christopher, 67, 93
Bronzino, Agnolo, 75 Joseph, Marianne, 16-17
Bruno, Giordano, 13, 64-68, 72
K
C Klemperer, Otto, 40 n. 212, 82 n. 331
Cantimori, Delio, 10
Cassirer, Ernst, 4, 8, 19, 20, 27, 31, 36, 51, 54, L
78 n. 314, 79 Leibniz, Gottfried W., 51, 54, 56
Cassirer, Toni, 19, 21, 34, 54 Lescourret, Marie-Anne, 13, 31
Lessing, Gotthold E., 17, 23, 38, 51, 54-60, 78, 82
D Levine, Emily, 13, 22, 31
Didi-Huberman, Georges, 39
Doni, Anton F., 79-83 M
Manet, Édouard, 70-71
E McEwan, Dorothea, 5 n. 11, 27
Eckardt, Isabella von, 49 Mendes-Flor, Paul, 25
Michels, Karen, 14, 23, 31, 34
F Mithras, 65
Ficino, Marsilio, 74 Momigliano, Arnaldo, 10, 17, 19
Forli, Marcolino da, 79
Frankfort, Enriqueta, 28, 38 N
Frankfort, Henri, 5, 28 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 60, 61, 62, 64

G O
Gentile, Giovanni, 68 Olschki, Leonardo, 64 n. 265
Ginzburg, Carlo, 10
Goethe, Johann W. von, V, XI, 23, 26, 54, 91, P
94, 95 Panofsky, Dora, 21, 34, 35
Gombrich, Ernst H., 1, 3, 40 Panofsky, Erwin, 21, 56
Gordon, Donald J., 7, 10, 82 n. 331 Petsch, Robert, 4, 26 n. 124, 51, 54
Gütschow, Margarete, 16 Pray Bober, Phyllis, 20-21
Purdie, Edna, 37-38, 40 n. 212, 55
108 the fortune of gertrud bing (-)

R V
Raimondi, Marcantonio, 70-71 Vinci, Leonardo da, 82
Reni, Guido, 75 Vorholt, Hanna, 25
Rucellai, Giovanni, 72, 74
W
S Warburg, Aby M., XIII, XIV, XV, 1, 3-5, 8-10,
Samson, Esther, 28 13-20, 22, 23, 28, 30-35, 37, 39-40, 49, 51, 52,
Sassetti, Francesco, 61, 72, 74 56, 60-62, 64-66, 68, 70-72, 74, 75, 78, 93, 94
Saxl, Fritz, 8-10, 17-22, 27, 28, 31, 32, 35, 36, 52, Warburg, Eric M., 5, 25
56, 78, 79, 79 n. 324, 94 Warburg, Max, 10, 68
Schoell-Glass, Charlotte, 23, 31 Wittkower, Rudolf, 15
Solmitz, Esther, 21, 32
Solmitz, Walter, 21, 27-28, 29, 32 Y
Strong, Eugénie (née Sellers), 36-37, 64 n. 261 Yates, Frances, 33
Swarzenski, Hanns, 25-26, 61

T
Theunissen, Cornelis Anthonisz, 74
 Colophon

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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
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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

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