Readings and Pathways through Mnemosyne Atlas
§ Readings: a methodology
§ Pathways through Mnemosyne Atlas
Readings: a methodology
The section of “Engramma” dedicated to the Mnemosyne Atlas presents 63 plates from the last version of Aby Warburg’s work (left unfinished by his sudden death in October 1929), reproduced from the available publications of the original photographic material preserved at the Warburg Institute in London. The overall plan of this annotated edition of the Bilderatlas, edited by the Centro studi classicA – IUAV (the Centre for classical studies at the Universotà Iuav di Venezia), ensures that every plate is accompanied by:
Title and Presentation
A title and a brief explanatory text on the contents which, succinctly, but without distorting the thematic complexity of the plate, provide a succinct summary of the general outline of the contents.
Notes by Aby Warburg and collaborators
Transcription and critical edition, from the original typewritten texts by Fritz Saxl and Gertrud Bing preserved at the Warburg Institute in London, with a new translation from German into Italian (WIA III.104.1).
Analyses
Explanatory essays, graphic readings, development of themes of individual plates of the Bilderatlas or transversal themes across different plates (published in "Engramma" since 2000). For a methodological survey on the research work carried out by "Engramma" on the plates, see Dentro Mnemosyne: percorsi di lettura e di ricerca nell'Atlante di Aby Warburg(in "Engramma" no. 26, July/August 2003).
High Definition
High Definition reproduction of the plates (courtesy of Warburg Institute Archive, London).
Captions
New critical editions of captions to the images in the panel. Images are numbered after theedition of the Atlas published in Bildersammlung zur Geschichte von Sternglaube und Sternkunde, "Aby Warburg Mnemosyne". Eine Ausstellung der Transmedialen Gesellschaft Daedalus in der Akademie der bildenden Künste[1925-1930, 1984], exhibition catalogue (Wien 25 January-13 March 1993), U. Fleckner, R. Galitz, C. Naber, H. Nöldeke eds., Dölling und Galitz, Hamburg 1993.
Details
Well-defined reproductions of all the works in the plate. The criteria for the choice of reproductions of the works reflects primarily the requirement for improved representation and display of the details on the web site: for this reason, images often do not correspond with the reproductions used by Warburg in the Bilderatlas, but with more recent reproductions (where possible, colour reproductions were privileged over the black and white photograms in the original montages of the Atlas). In some cases, the images of the works on display in the Mnemosyne plates were impossible to find, and it was decided to reproduce an enlargement of the detail from the relevant plate.
Pathways through Mnemosyne Atlas
Seminario Mnemosyne – researching at ClassicA, the Centre of classical studies of University Iuav of Venice – proposes a critical reading of the Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Bilderatlas, by presenting the 63 plates of the last version of his work (left unfinished by the sudden death of Warburg in October 1929) in 12 themed sections (I-XII), together with an introductory group (alpha) and closing group (omega). The sections, differentiated by colour, propose a pathway (one amongst the many possible) to read the complex internal architecture of Mnemosyne: for each pathway, we offer a summary of the themed contents.
α PATH (plates A, B, C) | Coordinates of Memory: Man and the Cosmos (the Tornabuoni family, Leonardo da Vinci, the Zeppelin)
The opening of the Mnemosyne Atlas shows via images the cultural, geographical and historical scope of the whole Atlas: the oscillation between the polarities of magic and mathematics in the Western cultural tradition from the Mediterranean to Northern Europe. Every picture that appears in the three plates is symptomatic of a particular declension of the relationship between man and the cosmos, from astrological superstition to the technological conquest of the heavens.
PATH I (plates 1, 2, 3) | Astrology and mythology: projections of the cosmos (Babylon, Athens, Alexandria, Rome)
The first evidence of the daemonic astrological tradition expressed in various interpretations and designs of the cosmos: from divination practices, to images of the harmony of the spheres, to the representations of the heavens. A journey that leads from ancient Babylon to Greece and, through Alexandria, to Hellenistic Rome, prefiguring the stages of other wanderings.
PATH II (plates 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) | Archaeological models and imprints from Antiquity. Ecstasy and melancholy, pathos of sacrifice and the gesture of triumph
Continuing the theme of the previous panels, this group presents itself as a compact repertoire of Hellenistic models: ‘ancient imprints’, i.e. formulae expressing different degrees of emotions (Pathosformeln) tied to primeval experiences – ecstasy, delirium, sacrificial rites (Dionysus, Orpheus, Mithras) – impressed on the collective memory. The re-emergence of these imprints of emotions, reused and semanticized in different historical contexts, provides clues for the reconstruction of a 'genetic code' of the Western cultural tradition.
PATH III (plates 20, 21, 22, 23, 23a, 24, 25, 26, 27) | The wandering and disguise of ancient Gods between East and West (Baghdad, Toledo, Padova, Rimini, Ferrara; 13th-15th Century)
Some stages in the transmission of Antiquity between the 13th and 15th Centuries: pagan Gods – 'barbarized', or allegorized, or enslaved as prefigurations of destiny – return to Christian Europe mediated through Eastern-Arabic textual and iconographic traditions. In these peregrinations – witnessed by precious illuminations, calendars, and astrological compendia – three monumental decorative cycles (Padua, Rimini, Ferrara) stand out and herald the return of Ancient gods in their Olympic form.
PATH IV (tables 28/29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36) | Vehicles of tradition: tournaments, pageantry, tapestries, mythological fables. Exchanges between North and South (the early Renaissance; Florence, Flanders)
Ways and forms of cultural tradition. Images are transmitted by material items (manuscripts of allegorized ancient texts, household objects such as 'cassoni' – nuptial chests – and tapestries) and intangible media (pageantry and popular rituals viewed as "intermediate forms between life and art"). In the active relationship between the re-emergence of ancient subjects (mythological stories) and representations of contemporary life, two special cases stand out: the exchanges – economic, social and cultural – between Medicean Florence and Flanders (exemplified by the art of portraiture), and the composed monumentality of Antiquity in the work of Piero della Francesca.
PATH V (plates 37, 38, 39) | The irruption of Antiquity: drawing, grisaille, courtly games, mythical allegories (Pollaiolo, Botticelli)
The re-emergence of Antiquity and the reactivation of the formulae of pathos. The works included in plates 37-39 testify to the upsurge of the 'antiquarian' style in the art of the early Italian Renaissance via archaeological drawings and sketches, the use of fake relief (grisaille), the hybrid forms of Medicean style, both courtly and ideal.
Juxtaposition of 'all'antica' styles: the 'brawny rhetoric' of Pollaiolo's figures, and the restless grace of Botticelli's mythological allegories.
PATH VI (plates 40, 41, 41a, 42) | Dionysiac formulae of emotions: annihilation and fury, mourning and meditation (victim, executioner, Mother, Maenad, Laocoon)
Many celebrated works of art (including those by Peruzzi, Reni, Lippi, Donatello, Bellini) record the expressive urgency of the Dionysiac pathos, literally re-invented in the early Renaissance, with varying degrees of energy. Antiquity even breaks out in religious and devotional art: figurative examples of this emotive expressiveness are the 'frenzied mothers' in the scene of the Massacre of the Innocents; the Laocoon (the sacrificed Priest); grieving figures in mourning scenes (pagan grief in Christian scenes).
PATH VII (plates 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49) | Nike and Fortuna: merchants, Angels, Nymphs, warriors (Ghirlandaio, Mantegna)
The 'portrait' of Renaissance man: the patron's demand for self-representation and the 'antiquarian' style between middle-class restraint, grandiloquence, and metaphorical detachment in the pictorial cycles by Ghirlandaio and Mantegna. Allegorical figures, personifications and pagan divinities outline the hard-won process of intellectual emancipation of Renaissance man.
PATH VIII (plates 50/51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56) | The gods’ ascent into the heavens, and their return to earth: from the Muses to Manet (Rome 16th - Paris 19th Century)
In the art of the great masters at the height of the Roman Renaissance (Raphael, Peruzzi, Michelangelo), the deities reacquire their Olympic and heavenly appearance: the patronage of Agostino Chigi being an excellent example. However, the gods will soon 'fall' to earth, taking bodily form in accordance with a variety of ways of perceiving Nature, including outdoor concerts, gods en promenade, and finally Manet's French Nymph.
PATH IX (plates 57, 58, 59) | Formulae of emotions and cosmology in Dürer. Migration of the gods to the North
The ‘antiquicizing ideal style' was acquired by Dürer through the Italian, entirely 'Southern', artistic language of Mantegna. Muses, maenads, planetary divinities, and knights of the Apocalypse become expressions of Nordic composure in contrast to the exaggerated dynamism of Italian figures 'all'antica'. Melancholy as a special quality of the intellectual man is a crucial theme in this period: black humour is the effect of Saturn's daemonic influence. Northern prints provide the planetary divinities with the means to travel throughout Reformation Europe.
PATH X (plates 60, 61/62/63/64) | The age of Neptune. The gods and the celebration of power of the Italian courts and European monarchies (16th-17th Century)
In the testimonies of court ceremonial during the time of the great conquests by sea, the Vergil quotation "Quos ego tandem", meaning quest for adventure and crossing of the earthly border, is echoed time and again. In the celebration and self-celebration of the powerful, the chariot of Neptune, beside the quadriga of the Sun, is the symbol of triumph. The revised ancient motto is now: PLUS ULTRA.
PATH XI (plates 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75) | Official art and the dramatization of myths: Baroque pathos. From the scene of abduction, to the Anatomy Lesson(Rubens, Rembrandt)
In Baroque art, ancient myths (such as the abduction of Proserpine) and archaic ritual practices (apotheosis, elevation, divination, mourning) are staged using emotional gestural language. Rembrandt's anti-rhetorical style is in contrast to the eloquent and didactic style of the Northern baroque theatre and civil celebration of the art officiel. Mythical and biblical scenes and sacrificial rites, which Rembrandt represents in an interiorised way, can be connected with double-edged contemporary cultural demands: mystical and intellectual contemplation on the one hand, and scientific speculation on the other.
PATH XII (plates 76, 77) | Engrams: defence, annihilation, apotheosis. The Mother, the Angel, the golf player (prints, stamps)
Some examples of the persistence and regenerative force of the imprints from Antiquity – engrams of the Memory – still in a Northern European milieu. In the works of Rubens and Delacroix in 17th Century prints, in stamps, in newspaper cuttings: the figures of Mothers and Nymphs find new, unexpected, spaces for re-emergence, even if de-semanticized, or unknowingly called to serve political power (the triumphal chariot of Neptune), or used in advertising (Nike), but, in whatever form, they are still charged with their original expressive energy.
ω PATH (plates 78, 79) | The Classical Tradition today. Church, State, power: from pagan sacrifice to the sublimation of ritual
The Mnemosyne Atlas closes by placing a question mark against the cultural transition from instinctive ferocity to sacrifice sublimated in ritual forms – e.g. sacrament of the Eucharist and, in a different way, the sportsman's 'muscular catharsis'. A number of different images – pictures from newspapers, masterpieces of art, propaganda prints – seem to point to a polarity between the indubitable progress of civilization (in a logical-rational direction) and the power of ritual (in a magical-emotive direction): however it is not a one-way route, nor has it been covered once and for all.
Note on the articulation of the pathways
The suggested internal articulation and the titles of each pathway and their interpretation is the result of the research of individual scholars who are part of the Centre for Classical studies, but also and chiefly, of the fruitful teamwork carried out since 2000 and still in progress (for details see Editoriale. Engramma da 0 a 100).
We feel justified in proceeding with this division by several facts – diversity, lacunae and gaps in the progressive numbering of the plates – that implicitly announce that the works has an internal articulation. More specifically:
♦ the first three plates are identified with letters rather than numbers: a clear mark of an opening section to the work and one we have designated as the alpha pathway.
♦ between plates 8 and 20, between plates 64 and 70, there is a gap in the numbering: in the two instances we have placed a caesura (between pathways II and III, and between pathways X and XI).
Apart from the objective data that signal the presence of groups within the work, while establishing boundaries between the pathways, we also considered the relative uniformity that can be found between some groups of plates:
♦ Plates A, B, and C – unlike the other plates labelled with letters rather than numbers – are placed at the beginning of the Atlas and represent the thematic introduction to the work: the three plates are grouped in the alpha pathway.
♦ Plates 1-8 show all the archaeological materials and have been subdivided into two contiguous pathways: pathway I - works of an astrological nature and of oriental and Hellenistic origins (Plates 1, 2, 3); pathway II - Hellenistic works and works from Imperial Rome, mostly known during the Renaissance (Plates 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).
♦ The group of plates numbered between 20 and 27, which we have defined as pathway III, consists of materials that are mostly of an astrological nature originating from the middle-east (plates 20 and 21), and then, by reconciling the subjects treated (Plates 22, 23a, 24 26), a series of almost ‘monographic’ plates on Italian sites which borrow from eastern astrological theories subjects for the extensive iconographic cycles in Palazzo della Ragione in Padova (Plate 23), the Malatesta Monument in Rimini (Plate 25), and Schifanoia in Ferrara (Plate 27).
♦ Plates 28/29 to 36 portray a repertory of different vehicles of tradition (masterpieces by Piero della Francesca, and valued Burgundian tapestries, together with objects in daily use and popular illustrations), signalling that the avenues of circulation of themes and subjects from an east-west axis moves to a North-South axis (and back): by placing an indistinct caesura with the preceding series, we have defined this group as pathway IV.
♦ Plates 37 – 49, chronologically and geographically very consistent, illustrate the irruption of ancient models into Renaissance art of Northern Italy: we have decided to split them between pathway V (Pollaiolo and Botticelli: plates 37, 38, 39); and pathway VI (emergence of emotional formulas of grief and mourning: (plates 40, 41, 41a, 42); and pathway VII (Ghirlandaio and Mantegna, Nymph, Fortune, grisaille: plates 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49).
♦ Between plates 50/51 and 64 the materials are not consistent from either stylistic or geographical points of view, but are united by the theme of forms of survival and of “trading with heaven” of the ancient gods during the Reformation: through these plates we have identified pathway VIII (ascent to heaven and falling back to earth: plates 50/51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56), pathway IX (Dürer and cosmology: plates 57, 58, 59), and pathway X (16th century monarchies and the gods in the service of power: plates 60, 64).
♦ After a gap in the numbering of the plates, the group between 70 and 75 presents two different ways of perceiving ancient themes and forms during the Baroque: the dramatization of myth in art officiel and Rubens, and introspective meditation in Rembrandt (pathway XI).
♦ Plates 76 and 77 illustrate the re-emergence of archetypal engrams in the iconography of celebration, sport, and advertising in contemporary documents (pathway XII).
♦ The atlas concludes with the Omega pathway which throws light on the symbols of the bodies of power, and the pact between religious power and temporal power, using documents of a contemporary event (plate 78: the Lateran pact of 1929 between the Italian State and the Church of Rome), and stressing the symbolic sublimation of sacrifice (plate 79).
As can be gathered running through this review, some pathways are more clearly defined, and others appear to be blurred: where the gaps are not clear, the boundaries between pathways are more fragile. This happens, for example, between plate 27 and plate 28/29 in which in fact the theme of vehicles of tradition continues; between plate 56 and plate 57, where, via Tarot cards, a Mantegna path continues; and between plate 77 and plate 78, linked in an experiment to prove the persistence of engrams during the contemporary era.
Defining the series of pathways alpha/I-XII/omega is useful for tracking an organigram of the internal structure of the Atlas, and providing an X-ray of its principal framework. However, a reading of these articulations serves also to highlight the play of internal twists and turns that in Mnemosyne connect one plate to another at a distance, and each group of plates to other groups, criss-crossing different pathways. On the other hand, the experience gained during these years of research while studying individual plates and the general structure of the Atlas had already highlighted parallels and internal links between one plate and another, sometimes confirmed by the author’s own comments. For example, components in plates 4-8 – the plates of the models (“antike Vorprägungen" as Warburg himself observes) – reappear in plates 37 – 49 which represent the Renaissance apographs in “antiquarian style”. The most significant example is perhaps the case of Laocoon that appears as an ancient exemplar in plate 6 and reappears cited in copies and variants as the guiding theme of plate 41a (but is already announced in a drawing by Mantegna in plate 37). In this sense, plates 37 – 49 which we have grouped together in pathways V, VI, VII, can be considered an expansion of the core defined as pathway II which groups together the ancient monuments to which Renaissance artists had access. Another example of a distant link between plates is the ecstatic- pathetic posture of the Maenad, already present in the model group as an ‘original’ exemplar, the Roman bas-relief in plate 6, re-employed in a neo-attic relief and cited as a model for a Magdalene under the Cross by Bertoldo di Giovanni in plate 25 (in detail): the same Renaissance piece reappears later in plate 42 (in its entirety) where the posture is inserted within a plate that displays various figures of Mourning over the Dead Christ drawn from ancient models. Other examples of internal citations: the figure of the “Thoughtful Nymph” drawn from a model on a Roman sarcophagus in plate 4, to Manet’s work deduced from an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi (from a drawing of an ancient sarcophagus by Rafaello) in plate 55. Or again: a drawing of the Battle of the Sea Gods by Mantegna in plate 49, that reappears in a Dürer copy in plate 57 (for the specific purpose of highlighting the transmission of subjects between North and South).
We believe that the system of divisions and interweavings outlined here is a valid point of departure for the reconstruction of the scenario planned by Warburg for the Bilderatlas, and that it is useful as a working instrument for suggesting a framework for a reading of the score and the internal orchestration of the Atlas. However, it is still, as are all categorisations, a system of interpretation that is discretionary and arbitrary, and wide open to correction and further revision.