"Eilig Reisende' im Gebiete der Bildvergleichung" - Aby Warburgs Bilderatlas "Mnemosyne" und die Tradition der Atlanten

The article explores the complex genesis of Aby Warburg's last major project, the Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, as well as the associated research history, and includes its methodological implications and a critique of previous research. This is followed by exemplary analyses of plates B, 1, and 46 of the Atlas, which show that Warburg's approach was often of an associative nature and that he was able to draw on the expertise of a small number of highly qualified collaborators in his work. This is followed by a detailed discussion of older atlas projects from the 19th and early 20th centuries, which Warburg used as models for his arrangement of the material and which he demonstrably dealt with in some cases. Here it also becomes clear which models his project was modelled on and what he explicitly distanced himself from. Finally, the large number of atlases available at the time on all possible fields of knowledge leads to the question of the methodological demands and methodological limitations inherent in Warburg's Bilderatlas.