the aesthetic dimension of panel arrangements 

In this context, Bilderatlas Mnemosyne arrangements consist of a series of images clustered around a painting reproduction usually located in the upper section. It is structured in a compact arrangement dominated by the entire panel and integrated with details or additions. Images selected according to the theme heading are diversified primarily by figure composition, posture, and expression characteristics, and are positioned according to their representational value and priority in image, text, or document format by being confronted with manuscript pages. Design elements such as movement and balance are partially displaced here, essentially allowing for an inquiry that becomes ironic and criticizes the historical context. 

Here, Warburg is in an effort to arrange that almost cancels the gaze-space relationship while highlighting the painting visual of Christian mythology that explicates the thematic context. This  difference in perspective, which suggests following the relationship between parts, breaks away from  the flow discipline, turning into a mass of wandering images in an encrypted immanence that only considers dimension-hierarchy. In other words, it consists of a communication network arranged for the intellectual viewer or reader, and seems to expect interest only from a segment that possesses this accumulation or is familiar with these images. For example, panel 79, the final panel, is structured according to headings such as “Paganism in the Church,” “The Miracle of the Bleeding Bread,” and “Identification.” Its sequence of images has an effect that evokes provocative forces with cosmic connections backed by historical, political, and religious references. With a chronological approach, it is as if the entire project is summarized here. 

Two newspaper clippings stand out as elements emphasizing the function and importance of the Atlas. This panel has a mobility that flows and intensifies from the left side to the right. The image of Raphael’s fresco located in the Vatican stands out as the largest visual. The effective performance observed here is in a disconnection that emits tension and vibration that contrasts with the newspaper page visuals in the lower section. Procession images, bread-making stories expressed with woodcuts, harakiri scenes, and circuitous meaning paths established with independent elements seem to be arranged within an invitation to discovery. 

Bilderatlas panels are arranged to suggest connections and leaps across time and space and to discuss the fundamental importance of the visual in more general cultural studies. For instance, panel 72 emphasizes the iconographic similarity between forms of socialization shaped by contemporary  ceremonies and religious representations and rituals. It satirizes the contradictions between the representation of sovereignty and the idea of freedom through drawings and visuals, with ironic and contemporary visual elements (postage stamp and golf game images). Or, in panel 77, it makes visible the evolution and change of iconography established with Delacroix’s seascapes in a variety of extending to contemporary advertising elements. However, this panel contains fundamental structural differences. It seems incomplete due to the intermediate spaces left on the surface. This panel also most clearly shows the sense of time gap and disconnection between images. It contains independently colored object-images. As such, it is the arrangement where Warburg comes closest to the exhibition work identity and developing collage-montage experiences. It is also particularly noteworthy for its aesthetic adequacy that makes the critical context accessible through montage technique, transforming into a cognitive model that integrates its meaning with literary references,  problematizing the state of articulation or suggesting displacement between images, the halting flow established with empathic evocations, and disconnected connections.