The Mnemosyne Atlas and the Meaning of Plate 79 In Aby Warburgs Oeuvre as a Distributed By Sara Angel, University of Toronto

In 1923 the art historian Aby Warburg began an epic project called the Mnemosyne Atlas, a fittingly enigmatic title for a work so unique that no other example of art historical scholarship has matched its form and content. It consisted of stretching black cloth on metal frames, upon which Warburg mounted hundreds of images from numerous fields. In total, Warburg created 79 screens, each one a complex, multi-dimensional network of pictorial anthologies, and visual juxtapositions. His endeavor was to find a revisionist method for studying artone that surpassed the limitations of understanding it through language. But Warburgs goal set up a new challenge. How does one understand his art history without text? Since Warburg died before the Mnemosyne Atlas was finished, the work has left art historians baffled for almost ninety years. Arguably, a fundamental obstacle in understanding the Mnemosyne Atlas has been a question of approach. Since it is unlike anything that has come before or after it in art-historical scholarship, the work must be addressed in a new light. To move toward an alternative comprehension of the Mnemosyne Atlas my study investigates the work in an anthropological context, utilizing a theoretical framework outlined by Alfred Gell in Art and Agency: Towards a New Anthropological Theory (1998) which views the complete creative output of an individual as a network of its creators distributed personhood. Following Gells methodology, this study first maps Warburgs oeuvre. Then it takes a close look at plate 79 of the Mnemosyne Atlas not only Warburgs final and least understood piece of output, but one that can be identified as a reflection of his artistic personhood between 1891 to 1929. According to Gell, each separate work in an artists oeuvre can be seen as a recension of previous onesa particularly fitting description for the atlas as Warburg understood it. Just days before his death, Warburg wrote that its purpose was to unite his different and specialized studies into a unified work, which would demonstrate the goal of all my artistic endeavors. An URL associatied to my topic is: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2783349

FIGURE 3. Warburgs Oeuvre as a Distributed Object Key

Weak protention (precursor) Strong protention (sketch) Weak retention (recapitulation) Strong retention (copy)
1914-18 Luther, the Press, Prophecy, and Propaganda 1923-29 Plate 22 Astrology 1923-29 Plate 39 Botticelli

1893 Botticelli and the Afterlife of the Antique

1895-96 The American Southwest, Symbolism and Magic

1902 Sassetti, Living Portraiture and Photography

1923-29 Plate 41A Laocoon

1923-29 Plate 41 Gestures in Northern Religious Art

1923-29 Plate 43 Sasetti

1923 The Serpent Ritual of the Pueblo Indians

1929 Plate 79 1923-29 Plate 53 Vatican Frescoes

1891 Dissertation on Botticellis Birth of Venus and Primavera

1901 Warburgs Library: A New Art History

1912 Astrology and the Palazzo Schifanoia 1923-29 Plate 55 Scenes of the Pastoral

1923-29 Plate 72 Rembrandt

1895 The Intermedi and the Enactment of Antiquity

1923-29 Plate 59 The Northern Renaissance Popular Press

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