Pathosformel as grammar

Abstract

The artist and polymath Lambert Lombard of Liège developed a radical outlook on the theory and practice of artistic creation that he sought to illustrate in a ‘grammar’ of formal studies. Devised during a period of intense crisis for image-making in northern Europe, this ‘grammar’ offered a means to restore authority to the visual arts by recovering a canon of forms that had been perfected in antiquity yet became diluted over time. The present article examines the development and function of Lombard’s ‘grammar’, focusing on its role in the instruction he provided to a new generation of Netherlandish artists. It explores similarities between Lombard’s project and Aby Warburg’s celebrated Mnemosyne Atlas, compiled between 1924 and 1929. This comparison provides new insights into the visual, material and conceptual strategies through which Lombard’s ‘grammar’ illuminated the entwined properties of motion and emotion that he defined as the essence of perfect art.