On Form: Wind and Warburg Examined

These days, form of artistic products mostly belong to the universe of generalized visual regime. Can we mean the same thing when we apply the expression 'form of the artwork' to the products of our time as well as to the works described by Wind and especially by Warburg? In other words: what is the issue of the artworks' form? I maintain that the compelling nature of the question of form may well emerge in the light of the writings of Wind and Warburg. For both, the artwork reveals itself as the connection along time between the deep background (mythical-energetic), and its phenomenality, in which it materializes but can never be exhausted. In this sense, the form is the differential between being and a configuring, expressive force. Warburg's research moves from a primitive (prelinguistic) background to its redefinition in panels and linkages of meaning (the Bilderatlas); Wind goes the opposite way: from Panofsky-like schematism to empirics and historicity.