The imagination is a discovery of mediaeval philosophy. In one formulation of the philosopher Averroes, it is imagination, not the intellect, that is the defining principle of the human species.
Walter Benjamin, in the early 20th century immersed himself again in the topic of imagination, and a principle of his was: life is given to everything to which an image is given. — At the same time Aby Warburg developed his project of the ‘Mnemosyne Atlas’, intending to collect the images of Western humanity in an all-encompassing collection.
‘Warburg’s interest especially in astrological images has its roots in the awareness that the observation of the sky is the grace and damnation of man, and that the celestial sphere is the place where men project their passion for images. In this sense, the celestial constellations are the original text in which imagination reads what was never written’.
Georgio Agamben, ‘Nymphs’, 2007
