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International Journal for Digital Art History, Issue #2

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International Journal for Digital Art History, Issue #2 Artistic Data and Network Analysis Figure 1. Aby Warburg’s Panel 45 with the color version of the images mapped over the black-and-white photographic reproductions. Peer-Reviewed Images as Data: Cultural Analytics and Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Stefka Hristova Abstract: In this paper, by extending the methodology of media archaeology to the praxis of Cultural Analytics/Media Visualization I ask how have we compared multitude of diverse images and what can we learn about the narratives that these comparisons allow? I turn to the work of Aby Warburg who attempted to organize close to two thousand images in his Mnemosyne Atlas. In comparing contemporary methods of image data visualization through cultural analytics method of remapping and the turn of the century methodology developed by Warburg under the working title of the “iconology of intervals,” I examine the shifts and continuities that have shaped informational aesthetics as well as data-driven narratives. Furthermore, in drawing parallels between contemporary Cultural Analytics/Media Visualization techniques, and Aby Warburg’s Atlas, I argue that contextual and image color data knowledge should continue to be important for digital art history. More specifically, I take the case study of Warburg’s Panel 45 in order to explore what we can learn through different visualization techniques about the role of color in the representation of violence and the promise of prosperous civil society. Keywords: images as data, Aby Warburg, Cultural Analytics, color, visualization, violence, reconciliation In their current state, the methods information about the artifact. In this of Cultural Analytics and Digital project, I take on a hybrid Digital Art Humanities provide two radically Historical methodology that combines different ways of interpreting images. Cultural Analytics as articulated by Cultural Analytics calls upon the Lev Manovich with Digital Humanities understanding of images as objects paradigms. I apply this method to with features, and more specifically as the case study of Aby Warburg’s image-data in and of themselves. The Mnemosyne Atlas from 1924, and potential of this computational method to Panel 45 more specifically. The to digital art history was presented twenty-four images in Panel 45, many in detail in Manovich’s essay “Data of which were created by the Italian Science and Digital Art History.”1 fresco painter Domenico Ghirlandaio, Digital Humanities methodologies on comprise the objects for this study. I the other hand rarely analyze images selected Panel 45 because it grapples per se. Instead, they tend to focus on with the relationship between color and the metadata: historical and cultural violence. Using Cultural Analytics, I Images as Data render Warburg’s images as color-data. an understanding of not only of I argue that this color-data, situated in the formal elements of the images, the theoretical framework provided but also of their cultural meaning.5 by Christopher Johnson’s 2013 Digital While his panels contained no textual Humanities project about Warburg descriptions, Warburg kept notes that titled Mnemosyne: Meandering through listed provisional titles as well as the Aby Warburg’s Atlas2 and in reference overarching theme of each panel. with traditional art historical texts about Domenico Ghirlandaio, speaks The black-and-white photographs of to the larger tropes of violence and civil artworks were pinned either directly to reconciliation. I demonstrate that color- the black fabric, or framed over a white data becomes art historical knowledge mate. They varied in size, proportion of through an in-depth conversation with the depicted image, as well as distance digital humanities practices as well as from each other. Warburg sometimes with already established disciplinary photographed the work of art in its knowledge. entirety. In other instances, he focused on a detail and included only a close- up. Through the use of the close up, Warburg’s he cropped and framed elements that can be then positioned as points Mnemosyne of emphasis within the panels. The panels themselves have not survived by Warburg worked on the and what we have left instead are black AMnemosyne Atlas project from and white photographs of these panels 1924 until his death in 1929. The Atlas instead. consisted of over two thousand black and white photographs of works of art arranged on “sixty-three wooden Panel 45 boards, measuring approximately 150x200cm, covered with black hristopher Johnson conducted cloth.”3 According to Warburg, these Can extensive study of Warburg’s arrangements of diverse types of work. His research resulted in both images attempted to produce “first a book manuscript titled Memory, of all an inventory of pre-coined Metaphor, and Aby Warburg’s Atlas classical forms that impacted upon of Images and a Digital Humanities the stylistic development of the Project titled Mnemosyne: Meandering representation of life in motion in through Aby Warburg’s Atlas. The the age of the Renaissance.”4 It aimed book illuminates Warburg’s use of the to offer a “comparative analysis” of metaphor as a structuring element. visual and cultural tropes spanning Here Johnson argues that Panel 45 from Classic Antiquity to Renaissance, is a “study in contrasts.6” As cited in and engaged the early 20th century Johnson book, Warburg’s notes on this as well. This analysis was built upon panel read: 118 DAH-Journal Images as Data Superlatives of the language theme of panel 79), and even of gestures. Wantonness of as the serving girl in Birth of self conscious ness. Individual John the Baptist heralds the “heroes emerging out of the all-important theme of the typological grisaille. Loss of nymph whose ‘life in motion’ the ‘how’ of metaphor. At the [bewegtes Leben] animates center of the panel’s twenty- Warburg’s own thinking, the four images are two frescoes panel heightens the lethal by Ghirlandaio from the threats (e.g., plague, tyranny, Torenabouni Chapel, Mas- war) against the possibility sacre of the Innocents and of achieving psychological Apparition of the Angel to ‘balance’ [Ausgleich].7 Zechariah.7 “ According to Johnson, “this The Digital Humanities project panel explores the tension between Mnemosyne offers further insight into violence and passion on one hand the specific images that constitute the and the aesthetic formal properties of panels.8 Here the twenty-four black- grisaille – a technique that relies on and-white photographs of artworks varied in brightness gray palettes and that constitute Panel 45 are named desaturated colors - on the other.9 Here and numbered. They are also linked Warburg explored the role of grisaille to the color version of each artwork. technique as well as color in conveying Johnson’s interpretation of the panel violence. reads: Building upon Johnson’s work, I A study in extremes, panel argue that Panel 45 is indeed a com- 45, builds on the se quence of parative study of contrasts – contrasts panels 41, 41a, 42, 43, & 44. But that engage both visual and cultural “it does so to signal a perilous tropes. Warburg explores violence and ‘loss’ of metaphoric distance. promise of civil reconciliation rather Here frescos by Ghirlandaio than passion; grisaille and brightly emblem ize the ‘afterlife’ of saturated color, Classic Antiquity and classi cal ‘expressive values’ Renaissance. Warburg articulates these in the Renaissance. Yet dyads by positioning images of rebirth Ghirlandaio’s use of the on the left side of the panel – such as the grisaille technique is not able Birth of John the Baptist by Domenico to fully moder ate or mediate Ghirlandaio, and images of violence the inten sity of the passions. on the right – such as Massacre of the Thus even as the Massacre of Innocents by Matteo di Giovanni. As the metonymically the Inno cents two frescoes represented in the center yields to The Blood of of Panel 45 show, the possibility of the Redeemer (while also the social is rooted in a long-standing anticipating the Eucharistic tradition of violence. DAH-Journal 119 Images as Data between color and gray scale in relation Panel 45 in Color to violence and possibility of civil reconciliation that Warburg positioned he extensive documentation pro- in first place as his motivation behind Tvided by the Digital Humanities the composition of Panel 45. Mnemosyne Project (2013) allows for the reconstitution of this panel in color (Figure 1). Cultural Analytics further Cultural Analytics con firms the importance of the question of color in Warburg’s work. I argue that as a Methodology color is an important agent of meaning in Panel 45 not only because of its aving translated Panel 45 into primacy as a feature for data extraction color, I turn to the methodology in Cultural Analytics, but also because H of Cultural Analytics in order to it was the primary diving principle convert its images into color-data. in the organization of Warburg’s Cultural Analytics is a methodology thought. Warburg questions the spearheaded by Lev Manovich and transience of violence and the promise the Software Studies Initiative, which of social rebirth in the Classic as well “allows the users to work with different as Renaissance periods through an kids of data and media all shown exploration of both color and . grisaille together.”10 It adapted Information Although panel 45 consists of black Visualization techniques used in STEM and white photographs, I argue that he to the fields of Art History, Film and was working with and conceptualizing Media Studies, and Popular Culture, to through works of art in color. The name a few. Information visualization, black-and-white effect is due to the as defined by Lev Manovich, is “a widely photographic reproduction technology used as a tool for understanding data – deployed in the constitution of the i.e. discovering patterns, connections, panels. The s images for Warburg Atla and structure” and as such delivers were pictures of intense color.
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