Introduction to Mnemosyne Atlas’ Panels

Monica Centanni, Katia Mazzucco, translated by Elizabeth Thomson

Versione Italiana | English Abstract

Aby Warburg’s final project, Mnemosyne, his Atlas of the Memory, is composed of a series of montages of images, which his death prevented from being published. There are various versions of the plates of Mnemosyne, none of which is definitive. The concern caused by this apparent incompleteness prevented the work from being considered a legacy rather than a ‘fatherless’ project.

This is a difficult point of departure for the guides to interpretation proposed by the Review of Engramma. The Atlas demands to be read and interpreted with the conviction that a legacy is legacy only if it is enjoyed and made to bear fruit. This conviction is reflected in our decision to use information technology as a support and methodological instrument. It makes it possible to maintain the mobility of the images, to pursue the itineraries suggested by Mnemosyne, and to confer upon the work a form which is unable to remain fixed, thereby leaving it free to evolve.

In order to approach the Atlas it is essential to bear in mind that, although it re-presents subjects which Warburg researched all his life, no plate can be considered the visual explanation of a written essay. Verbal and visual communications have different codes and potentialities. It is impossible to invert them without losing or adding something, because each is an expression of a specific language. The association of images in each plate of Mnemosyne is not casual, but is dictated by a certain “family resemblance” which connects themes, postures, and geographical and cultual areas. The interpretation of the plates necessarily pursues non-linear itineraries. Indeed, the connections between the images are not unequivocal; they reflect the complexity of the associative processes of the human brain. The association of these images is by a multiplicity of ramifications, and the same images — or parts thereof — belong to different categories, which interpenetrate.

In many plates, the points of reference in these non-linear itineraries are the introductory and final images (the incipit and explicit), whilst in others the composition gravitates around one image, not always the central one. In some of the more complex plates, the reference points can be found between the extremes of the introductory and final images. Having found one’s bearings, one realises that every image attracts another, one that is either already included in the Atlas or that can be added as a result of further research. Every plate, in fact, suggests another series of images, which form a kind of phantom plate that gives the same message from a different perspective.

The readings presented in the review of Engramma, identify possible thematic connections with coloured contours, whilst the possible formal connections are blocked and highlighted. A code composed of letters and numbers refers to more specific sub-groups. The final plate is a summary that reveals the interpenetration of the itineraries pursued, and underscores their indissolubility.

Needless to say, all guides to interpretation, like the notions contained in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, are presented to the vigilant reader who “in the end, if he has risen by them, over them, and beyond them, recognises that they are meaningless. He should, so to say, throw away the ladder after he has climbed it” (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-pholosophicus, 6.54).

English Abstract

Aby Warburg's greatest and last work are the plates of the Mnemosyne Atlas, not published before the author's death. Engramma proposes the experiment of reading and interpreting the Atlas, in the arrangement and composition of the individual plates and the entire scheme: in this, hypertext reading seems to be a useful tool.

keywords | Atlas Mnemosyne; Panels; Engramma; Hypertext.

Per citare questo articolo / To cite this article: M. Centanni, K. Mazzucco, Introduction to Mnemosyne Atlas, translated by E. Thomson, “La Rivista di Engramma” n. 1, settembre 2000, pp. 73-74 | PDF