minnesbild

Minnesbild is a noun used in German and Swedish that roughly translates to a memory image or mental image. In Swedish, minnesbild denotes a picture formed in the mind from memory, often a remembered scene or impression. In German, Minnesbild (singular; Minnesbilder in plural) has historical usage referring to a figurative image recalled by a person, sometimes invoked in poetry and later literary criticism to describe the evocative recall of a scene or person.

In psychology and cognitive science, the concept aligns with mental imagery—the capacity to create sensory representations in the absence of external stimuli. Minnesbilder can be visual, auditory, or multimodal, and vary in vividness between individuals. They can be elicited by memory, imagination, or associative cues and play a role in memory, planning, problem solving, and creative thinking. The term itself is not a precise scientific category; in English, the closest equivalents are mental image or visual imagery.

Historically and culturally, minnesbild has been used to describe reminiscences in literature and art, especially in Romantic and post-Romantic contexts, where a landscape, person, or moment is recalled as an evocative image rather than as a precise, factual record. The concept underscores how memory can be experienced as a concrete, pictorial impression rather than as abstract knowledge.

See also: mental imagery, visual imagery, reminiscence, memory.