Bildatlas, åskådning och reproduktion. Aby Warburgs Mnemosyne-atlas och visualiseringen av konsthistoria kring 1800/1900
Picture Atlas, Visual Education and Reproduction. Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne-Atlas and the Visualization of Art History around 1800/1900
Författare
Summary, in English
Warburg’s unfinished picture atlas is often described as an expression of an idiosyncratic persona who intended to pursue an “Art History without words”. The dissertation intends to normalize this vague reading through an examination of archival documents and by situating the atlas project within a historical context that takes account of visual aids used by Art historians around the turn of the last century. The Mnemosyne-atlas is thus discussed in relation to the genre of the Art historical picture-atlas, the history of visual education (Anschauungsunterricht), autopsy vs. heteropsy, skioptikon- and epidiascopic presentation technology, and the Art historical discourse regarding reproductions as an “objective” research instrument and as a “comfortable” surrogate for the physical art work.
By describing and discussing the Mnemosyne-Atlas, but also other visual and educational devices by the K.B.W., as part of a visual-didactical tradition and milieu which were dependent on modernity’s emerging visual content industry and an economically viable reproductive technology, the dissertation claims that Warburg and the K.B.W.'s visual apparatuses to a significant degree was not an unique or an individual endeavour but a collaborative project within a wider thought-collective (Denkollektiv). Furthermore the visual, presentational and educational devices can be regarded as a normal scientific image-practice for Art historians who at the time were extremely preoccupied with comparative analysis, typology, visual evidence and knowledge conveyed through the combination of texts and various visual aids. Warburg and the K.B.W.’s visual devices are therefore situated in a broad context which puts forth a wider understanding of the Mnemosyne-atlas and other image-series’ (Bilderreihen) presentational-technological descent and as induced by reproduction technology and its discourse around 1800/1900. The widespread reading of an “Art history without words” can therefore, according to the dissertation, be considered as an unintentional reception and consequence by Warburg and the K.B.W.
Supervisors: Lektor Carsten Juhl (The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen) and Lektor Jens Toft (IKK, Copenhagen University).
Publiceringsår
2011
Språk
Svenska
Dokumenttyp
Doktorsavhandling
Förlag
Copenhagen University & Lund University
Ämne
- Art History
Nyckelord
- historiography
- Art History
- picture atlas
- visual education
- The Warburg Institute
- Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg
- Mnemosyne
- Fritz Saxl
- Aby Warburg
Status
Published
Handledare
- Carsten Juhl
- Jens Toft
Försvarsdatum
3 november 2011
Försvarstid
13:17
Försvarsplats
Festsalen, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen
Opponent
- Ragni Linnet (Associate Prof)
- Hans Dam Christensen (Dean of research)
- Jan Bäcklund (Associate Prof.)