Guided Pathway

The other images in the vertical path of panel 70 depict similar images of abduction and violence, again aligning allusions to the story of the rape of Proserpina (#14) with depictions of the sacrifice of Iphigenia (#15) and the “Massacre of the Innocents” (#16). While some of these images depict chaos and the violent eruption of emotions, the majority indicate a tradition of controlling one’s self and the passions. Warburg’s inclusion of Northern Baroque neo-Stoic Dutch drama and opera in the vertical path is the counterpoint to his diagonal argument about Northern versus Southern sensibility. The vertical path thus ends as legitimately in the de Passe image as the diagonal sequence from Rubens to Rembrandt with a celebration of informed sophrosyne associated specifically with northern European thought as the antidote to unleashed passions.