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The Resource Memory, metaphor, and Aby Warburg's Atlas of images, Christopher D. Johnson

Memory, metaphor, and Aby Warburg's Atlas of images, Christopher D. Johnson

Creator
Summary
"The work of German cultural theorist and art historian Aby Warburg (1866-1929) has had a lasting effect on how we think about images. This book is the first in English to focus on his last project, the encyclopedic Atlas of Images: Mnemosyne. Begun in earnest in 1927, and left unfinished at the time of Warburg's death in 1929, the Atlas consisted of sixty-three large wooden panels covered with black cloth. On these panels Warburg carefully, intuitively arranged some thousand black-and-white photographs of classical and Renaissance art objects, as well as of astrological and astronomical images ranging from ancient Babylon to Weimar Germany. Here and there, he also included maps, manuscript pages, and contemporary images taken from newspapers. Trying through these constellations of images to make visible the many polarities that fueled antiquity's afterlife, Warburg envisioned the Atlas as a vital form of metaphoric thought. While the nondiscursive, frequently digressive character of the Atlas complicates any linear narrative of its themes and contents, Christopher D. Johnson traces several thematic sequences in the panels. By drawing on Warburg's published and unpublished writings and by attending to Warburg's cardinal idea that "pathos formulas" structure the West's cultural memory, Johnson maps numerous tensions between word and image in the Atlas. In addition to examining the work itself, he considers the literary, philosophical, and intellectual-historical implications of the Atlas. As Johnson demonstrates, the Atlas is not simply the culmination of Warburg's lifelong study of Renaissance culture but the ultimate expression of his now literal, now metaphoric search for syncretic solutions to the urgent problems posed by the history of art and culture."--Publisher's Web site
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
xiii, 286 pages
Contents
  • Atlas gazed : Mnemosyne : its origins, motives, and scope
  • Ad oculos : ways of seeing, reading, and collecting
  • Metaphor lost and found in Mnemosyne
  • Translating the symbol : Warburg and Cassirer
  • Metaphorologies : Nietzsche, Blumenberg, and Hegel
  • Exemplary figures and diagrammatic thought
  • Synderesis : the "Bruno-Reise"
Isbn
9780801477423
Instance
Label
Memory, metaphor, and Aby Warburg's Atlas of images
Title
Memory, metaphor, and Aby Warburg's Atlas of images
Statement of responsibility
Christopher D. Johnson
Creator
Subject
Language
eng
Summary
"The work of German cultural theorist and art historian Aby Warburg (1866-1929) has had a lasting effect on how we think about images. This book is the first in English to focus on his last project, the encyclopedic Atlas of Images: Mnemosyne. Begun in earnest in 1927, and left unfinished at the time of Warburg's death in 1929, the Atlas consisted of sixty-three large wooden panels covered with black cloth. On these panels Warburg carefully, intuitively arranged some thousand black-and-white photographs of classical and Renaissance art objects, as well as of astrological and astronomical images ranging from ancient Babylon to Weimar Germany. Here and there, he also included maps, manuscript pages, and contemporary images taken from newspapers. Trying through these constellations of images to make visible the many polarities that fueled antiquity's afterlife, Warburg envisioned the Atlas as a vital form of metaphoric thought. While the nondiscursive, frequently digressive character of the Atlas complicates any linear narrative of its themes and contents, Christopher D. Johnson traces several thematic sequences in the panels. By drawing on Warburg's published and unpublished writings and by attending to Warburg's cardinal idea that "pathos formulas" structure the West's cultural memory, Johnson maps numerous tensions between word and image in the Atlas. In addition to examining the work itself, he considers the literary, philosophical, and intellectual-historical implications of the Atlas. As Johnson demonstrates, the Atlas is not simply the culmination of Warburg's lifelong study of Renaissance culture but the ultimate expression of his now literal, now metaphoric search for syncretic solutions to the urgent problems posed by the history of art and culture."--Publisher's Web site
Member of
Cataloging source
NIC/DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorDate
1964-
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Johnson, Christopher D.
Illustrations
illustrations
Index
index present
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
Series statement
Signale : modern German letters, cultures, and thought
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Warburg, Aby
  • Art criticism
  • Art, Classical
  • Art, Renaissance
  • Metaphor in art
  • Memory in art
Label
Memory, metaphor, and Aby Warburg's Atlas of images, Christopher D. Johnson
Instantiates
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier.
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent.
Contents
Atlas gazed : Mnemosyne : its origins, motives, and scope -- Ad oculos : ways of seeing, reading, and collecting -- Metaphor lost and found in Mnemosyne -- Translating the symbol : Warburg and Cassirer -- Metaphorologies : Nietzsche, Blumenberg, and Hegel -- Exemplary figures and diagrammatic thought -- Synderesis : the "Bruno-Reise"
Control code
FIEb17189019
Dimensions
23 cm.
Extent
xiii, 286 pages
Isbn
9780801477423
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia.
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
illustrations
System control number
(OCoLC)767566915
Label
Memory, metaphor, and Aby Warburg's Atlas of images, Christopher D. Johnson
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier.
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent.
Contents
Atlas gazed : Mnemosyne : its origins, motives, and scope -- Ad oculos : ways of seeing, reading, and collecting -- Metaphor lost and found in Mnemosyne -- Translating the symbol : Warburg and Cassirer -- Metaphorologies : Nietzsche, Blumenberg, and Hegel -- Exemplary figures and diagrammatic thought -- Synderesis : the "Bruno-Reise"
Control code
FIEb17189019
Dimensions
23 cm.
Extent
xiii, 286 pages
Isbn
9780801477423
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia.
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
illustrations
System control number
(OCoLC)767566915

Subject

Member of

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