TY - JOUR AU - Sacco, Daniela PY - 2015/11/23 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Composing the Symbolic JF - Aisthesis. Pratiche, linguaggi e saperi dell’estetico JA - aisthesis VL - 8 IS - 2 SE - Articles DO - 10.13128/Aisthesis-17565 UR - https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/aisthesis/article/view/873 SP - 59-75 AB - <p class="DefaultStyle">An excerpt from Sergei M. Eisenstein's memoirs describing a night visit to the museum of Chichén Itzá in Mexico is set forth as a real life example reflecting, both from a visual and theoretical perspective, the architecture of Aby Warburg's <em>Bilderatlas Mnemosyne </em>and his concept of <em>Denkraum</em>. Drawing upon Warburg's own writings and F. T. Vischer's theory of symbol, the paper looks at Eisenstein's experience at the museum as highlighting the dynamic relation between man's religious/magical and scientific/rational psychic poles, and the in-between space of thought inherent to the concept of <em>Denkraum </em>and visually represented by the empty dark intervals separating the images in the <em>Bilderatlas. </em>Adding significance to its argumentation, the paper also hints at an affinity between Eisenstein's film montaging and Warburg's image assembling criteria.</p> ER -