
Bilderatlas Mnemosyne | First version
By March 1928 some 40 panels containing a first draft for the so-called first version of the Atlas were set up in Warburg’s house next to the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg library building. What drove Warburg at this time to finish the work was the desire to take a completed Atlas to the United States on a planned, but never realized trip later in 1928. His intention was to promote his method at the most prominent and influential of American universities. Accordingly, he pushed for an agreement with a publisher and discussed costs and layout, without however having finalized the order of the whole. In early May 1928 Warburg settled on six major themes, ranging from courtly Burgundian realism to ancient and revived pathos formulas, astrology, festivals and drama and including the dynamics of contemporary political symbolism all’antica. He displayed all his materials, 670 reproductions on 43 panels, spread out over three rooms in both the old and the new buildings. The first photo session to record the disposition of these panels took place in the week of 7 May 1928, after Warburg had left Hamburg for medical treatment in Frankfurt am Main, from where he asked for further modifications. [C.W.]
-
Panel 1
-
Panel 2
-
Panel 3
-
Panel 4
-
Panel 5
-
Panel 6
-
Panel 7
-
Panel 8
-
Panel 9
-
Panel 10
-
Panel 11
-
Panel 12
-
Panel 13
-
Panel 14
-
Panel 15
-
Panel 16
-
Panel 17
-
Panel 18
-
Panel 19
-
Panel 20
-
Panel 21
-
Panel 22
-
Panel 23
-
Panel 24
-
Panel 25
-
Panel 26
-
Panel 27
-
Panel 28
-
Panel 29
-
Panel 30
-
Panel 31
-
Panel 32
-
Panel 33
-
Panel 34
-
Panel 35
-
Panel 36
-
Panel 37
-
Panel 38
-
Panel 39
-
Panel 40
-
Panel 41
-
Panel 42
-
Panel 43