In Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, whIle treatIng Images taken from art hIstory as manIfestatIons of vIsual culture, Warburg created a heterotopIc space that sets In motIon and energIzes Important IconIc fIgures and sculptures frozen and solIdIfIed In memory. He arranges Images sIde by sIde as sIgnIfIers of dIfferent language codes and opens new thInkIng spaces In the IntermedIate spaces consIstIng of meanIng dualItIes. He can reproduce each panel of BIlderatlas Mnemosyne wIth a sImple photomontage practice, transformIng the blurred and alIenated Images of memory Into lIvIng dynamIcforms by strIppIng them of theIr petrIfIed unrest.

The presence of both an attractive and threatening initiative in the thematic arrangement of images in Bilderatlas Mnemosyne reveals that each of the materials carries a historical clue value. Here, creative potential memory comes into play, and the seemingly harmonious state of images gains importance through the structuring of a comprehension problem through montage technique. In the sequential arrangement of images, their compromises that are essentially interrupted among themselves often invoke alienation rather than the fusion brought by montaging. Just as Benjamin stated: The montage technique, as a progressive form, interrupts the context in which it is placed and therefore resists illusion. And/but, the representational power of the images based onto panel surfaces actually increases its conceptual quality with the increase in the meaning gaps between the signifier and thesignified. (2) Thus, Warburg’s interest in archaic images expands the field of his own conceptual and genuine insights through a transformable montage technique. This is important in terms of showing the schizophrenic tones of Warburg’s unconscious that become fetishized with poetic dimensions and mysterious elements (such as texts and drawings and figures). 

From this perspective, it is possible to say that each image is part of a wholeness that reveals the schizoid spirit of Bilderatlas Mnemosyne. For the construction of a new artistic meaning, there is no doubt that understanding well the thematic spirit of each image that supports the whole and that this arrangement has transformed into a cultural memory construction loaded with discoveries extending to the present day in Bilderatlas Mnemosyne. Warburg’s interest in the power of images has taken on an obsessive-passionate state here. Moreover, his sensitivity about the formal structure of the image-which opposes traditional values-is decisively expressed with the linguistic discourse of an insight hidden in all montage intervals of a libertarian psychology. 

On the other hand, this discourse, combined with the photomontage effort that builds iconographic order and turns into a critical evaluation, reveals the essential dimensions of Warburg’s approach to artworks, namely the inner side of an alternative aesthetic perception. Here, Warburg also distinguishes the psychic quality that emerges in the layered structure between images appearing with the causality of image structuring and traces the expressions that remain hidden in memory images.

In a final look, Aby Warburg, as exemplified in Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, is like a passionate protagonist of a history of visual expression based on emotions and an attractive mental alienation game between subjective preferences along with image arrangements dedicated to remembrance. ♦