Baroque Weeping Baby Skeletons, the Creation of Man, Genesis and a Tiny Bit of All That.

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 1357

Jean-Jacques Scheuchzer's Physique Sacree (published 1732-1737) is an enormous, plumply illustrated thing, an extraordinarily diverse work on the Old Testament and the antique sacred and its relationship to the panoply of natural philosophy.  Its  759 illustrations are usually given overly-encrusted decorated borders by a diverse and at times bizarre selection of themes from biology, geology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and whatever else seemed to work. It is a production of the High Baroque and high imagination, working within the very definite confines of ecclesiastical squareness and scientific roundness--and somehow the pegs all seem to fit, for Scheuchzer.

The image that I latched onto [and which is available at 200% if you click through it]  illustrates Genesis I 26, 27:

 

"26: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

Indeed.  We can see the pure holly light (appreciably wide as it gets to its subject than when it started, where it is also degraded)  extending diagonally across the image to a surprised/fearful Adam, who is popped into a landscape of the newly-created.  But it is the border illustration that is most extraordinary to me--it is an 11-segment depiction of the birth process, told almost exclusively in baby skeletons.  The story begins at top-right corner, with perhaps a hint of conception, and then through  developmental stages II (embryonic) and then III/IV (taking us through the third month) and then V through VII (showing perhaps through the seventh month or so), displayed in a top- and bottom-middle display, and not in order.  I really don't know enough of developmental anatomy to say what is depicted in images VIII through XI, except to note that--of course--they are all skeletons, and the last is weeping. 

Spermatozoa seem to be missing in images I and II, or at least Scheuchzer didn't make an attempt to show them at work, even though he must've been aware of their existence, discovered  fifty years earlier (in 1677) by Leeuwenhoeck.  But this discovery certainly didn't get in the way of maintaining the theory and belief in the homonuclus--the tiny, preformed person carried completely within the sperm and implanted in the woman who served basically as an oven, a receptacle.  Scheuzcher believed on the other hand that the homonuclus was located in the ovaries--still part of the preformationist camp, but getting closer to elevating the importance of woman in embryological development.

 [All that said I don't know the reason for the weeping skeleton; or, for that matter, what the things are that the two skeletons at upper left are holding.]

The homunuclus, famously illustrated in Nicolas Hartsoeker's Essay de Dioptrique in 1694: 

Comments

[gwyn michael]

What a fascinating illustration!!! I would LOVE to see it in person. The whole book in fact. What struck me before I even examined the image closely is the first piece of scripture.
"26: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
So man in Gods image has dominion over all?
Whenever I read that (which is not to say often) I think, look how well that has turned out. If this is Gods grand plan giving us dominion was a really bad choice. Perhaps that is why the baby skeletons are crying? Doubtful, but I like that interpretation.

[John F. Ptak]

Interesting perspective Gwyn, thanks. I do not claim any expertise whatsoever in Bible matters, so I cannot tell if Man is given reign over all things on/of the Earth or the Earth itself. If the later, then watch out. I dunno about the weeping skeleton--putting it in the 1680's/90's when it was conceived, it was difficult to conceive of contemporary writers writing about dominion over anything. I think might be an Adam's-fall symbolism. But I don't know, really.

[David Bimler]

Please excuse me for coming to this thread a year late... I wasn't spending so much time at the Bookstore a year ago.
The weeping fetal skeleton is a straight copy from one of Frederik Ruysch's anatomical preparations, from about 1710:
http://www.zymoglyphic.org/exhibits/ruysch/ruysch1.jpg

I suspect the others are from the same source.

Of course the question remains, *why* the author thought that the illustrations would be enhanced by a frame of fetal memento mori.