THE ATLAS AS A SCIENCE OF IMAGES: ART HISTORY AND CULTURAL HISTORY IN GERHARD RICHTER AND ABY WARBURG
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Abstract
While acknowledging their historical and thematic differences, this article seeks to draw parallels between Gerhard Richter’s Atlas (1962–2013) and Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas (1924–29). The article commences by exploring the broader relationship between archives, memory, and images, subsequently delving into the analysis of three key aspects: the concept of montage-knowledge as the basis for constructing a history without text; the significance of auto(biographical) and fictional components in the projects of both authors; and the central role played by the processes of inscription, transformation and survival of images in shaping cultural memory. Here, cultural memory is comprehended as a conglomeration of knowledge and objects, serving as an ethical-scientific framework for constructing and symbolically interpreting historical knowledge. By shedding light on the comparative potential between Richter and Warburg, a topic scarcely covered in existing specialized literature (aside from sporadic references in Buchloh's 1999 text on the anomic archive), the article aims to contribute to an epistemological revaluation of some of the most relevant meanings, valences and concepts permeating the atlases of these two influential German “historian-artists”.
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