From the Cosmos to Man and back : a reading of Plate B in Aby Warburg's Mnemosyne Atlas

From Cosmos to Man and back again. A reading of Atlas Mnemosyne, Panel B

The A, B, and C Panels that open Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas define the “orientation” and coordinates (geographical, historical, cultural) of the Atlas as a whole, and set the grid for the analysis of the manifestations of the Classical tradition. While the first panel, Panel A, presents the three different “maps” of reality (cosmological, geographical, genealogical), Panel B focuses on one of the implicit themes of Panel A: the relationship between macro and microcosm and the consequences of the system that this relationship comes to design.

The images of this panel seem to all present the human body as a central figure. The need to represent and relate the human body to the cosmos is, in fact, expressed in this series of images that relate to the influences of the cosmos on man, establishing a correspondence between their respective systems. In the figures picked up on the panel, we see how from the Hellenistic to the Medieval and until to the Modern era, the human body is subordinated to the influences from planets and stars, first in a daemonic and then in a magical way. Only in two Renaissance examples, the scheme of this harmonious relationship is portrayed in a geometrical and logical form (Leonardo da Vinci). Human body is no longer subjected to the astral powers but is freed from cosmic influences. It is Leonardo's Man that will give his proportional measures to cosmos, not vice versa. Anthropocentrism instead of andropathia.