In the final years of his life, German art historian and cultural theorist Aby Warburg (1866-1929) became preoccupied with the role memory plays in shaping civilisation. His fascination led to the creation of the ‘Mnemosyne Atlas’, a large, unfinished collage consisting of 79 wooden panels covered with black cloth, on to which are pinned about a thousand images. These pictures from books, magazines and newspapers were arranged according to certain broad themes related to cosmology, ritual sacrifice, divinity, and so on. The period under scrutiny was mainly the Renaissance, an era fraught with tensions between reason and belief, and which would eventually lead to the birth of the Modern age.

By studying images related to Renaissance art, astronomy, astrology and cosmography, Warburg hoped to understand the many conflicting ideas and forces that govern culture and, hence, society. At the heart of this enterprise is a sincere effort to understand man’s irrationality. Warburg was deeply affected by World War I (1914-18), which he believed unveiled to him the “devastating truth that unchained, elemental man is this world’s unconquerable ruler”. According to him, powerful images contain fundamental ideas that have been recurring through the ages. Rather than decode these images individually, Warburg believed juxtaposing them would allow for a better, more nuanced and complicated understanding of what propels mankind.

For instance, in panel 79, alongside pictures of religious architectural elements such as altars, he arranged images of a hara-kiri ceremony; an illustration of corporal punishment; a newspaper clipping of the signing of the Locarno Peace Treaty (1925) between Germany, France, Belgium, Great Britain and Italy; a bunch of photographs of mass processions — several religious and some military; and an image of a dying man receiving last rites. These juxtapositions yield insightful and inconclusive interpretations that have kept theorists busy for years.

Christopher D Johnson, the author of Memory, Metaphor, and Aby Warburg’s Atlas of Images , believes this panel to be related to Warburg witnessing a rally in Rome venerating Benito Mussolini, the first of the many fascist leaders and dictators that came to power in Europe after WWI. Johnson reads this assemblage as dealing with themes of ritual and state-sanctioned violence, the power of an organised mob, and the similarity between religious worship and that of a fascist leader.

Mnemosyne is the personification of memory in Greek mythology. Since ancient Greece was an oral culture, good memory alone would ensure the transmission of culture and tradition to future generations. Hence, everyone from poets to lawmakers invoked Mnemosyne at the beginning of their recitation. The advent of the written word brought with it amnesia. Living memories turned into still histories and were shelved away. Through the ‘Mnemosyne Atlas’, Warburg attempted to consider history visually. Relationships between the images change, meanings are never fixed, and because visuals transcend the limits imposed by language, the image atlas could hopefully, allow the unexplainable to manifest itself.

For Warburg, this map of cultural memory had to be one that allowed for critical thinking. The viewer had to be emotionally unmoved by the image. In a diary entry written years before undertaking this project, Warburg wrote a cryptic message, “you gaze at me, but it does not hurt”. It’s not that Warburg did not understand that images can hurt, but perhaps he felt that indulging in disturbing or sensationalist images would lead us to a dead end. The ‘Mnemosyne Atlas’ is not about understanding all of history or any particular event. It is about considering the many myths, accidents, inventions and characters that lead to historical shifts.

Last week, almost every newspaper, magazine and website carried images of kar sevaks destroying the dome of the Babri Masjid. If we were to make a memory map for India, that photograph would be at the centre of so many violent events. It’s a disturbing example of the power of an image and the extent to which it can wound. All of us agree that it changed the course of our nation’s history. Some mourned the loss of our secular identity, while several considered it a triumph. But before we could finish commemorating this event, we were left with the numbing image of Shambulal Regar ranting as the burning body of Mohammed Afrazul writhed in the background. We don’t need to lay these images on a board to see their connections. But perhaps we need to look away from them and consider the side characters and their lies that made these events possible.

The ‘Mnemosyne Atlas’ remains an ambitious project because Warburg was not just looking at the past to understand the impulses of the present but because he imagined the atlas as an instrument of change: a map of cultural memory that would show us the caution needed to counter irrationality. It will seem like a utopian idea till we remember that it is time to change.

Blessy Augustine is an art critic based in New Delhi; @blessyaugust

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