Aby Warburg

Aby Warburg, born 1866 in Hamburg was a German art historian and cultural theorist. Warburg established iconology as an independent discipline within art history. Iconology is a model for interpret the general meaning of a piece of art, in a historical and cultural context. Warburg studied art history, archaeology and history of religion in Bonn 1886. When Warburg moved to Florence to study at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, he got interested in applying the methods of natural science to the human science. This led to the new method, iconography.