Man is But a Worm--Darwin and Redon, 1881-1883

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1589

In the last tow years of his life Charles Darwin enjoyed some critical and popular success  with the publication of his The formation of vegetable mold, through the action of worms,  which was published by the steadfast John Murray in London in October of 1881.  It sold at a better clip even than On the Origin of Species, which had sold very well 22 years earlier.  By the time the cartoon (above) appeared in print by the relatively mid-brow Punch magazine (by Linley Sambourne, 6 December 1881) Darwin's book sold about 7,000 copies, which for the time would make it a pretty good seller.

Darwin only had a few months left to live at the time of the Punch publication (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882), and I'm not too sure about what the old man would've felt in seeing it.  Actually, the Old Man wasn't all that old, but at 73 and with a belly full of worms or whatever and a lifelong list of complaints real and imagined, Darwin was older than jis years.  After everything had been said and doen, and the tons of complaints heaped upon him from all quarters, I suspect that the cartoon would mean nothing to him.

{Just for the record, we follow the evolution of worm-to-man in a trip one and a quarter times around the clock, starting with a big old (flat?)worm at bottom left, which develops counter-clockwised into a chimp-worm, then into a monkey-thing, then into a sort of comic-relief Darwin-ape-man, winding its course into Charles Darwin himself.  Not flattering to the man or the idea.]

It would on the other hand be a curious thing to imagine Darwin meeting for a chat with the expansive evocateur Odilon Redon, who created some of the earliest (non-confrontational editorial) art based on Darwin's Origin.  Redon (April 20, 1840 – July 6, 1916) published eight lithographs based on Darwin's work in  Les Origine (Paris,  Lemercier and Cie), and they were unlike anything that I've ever seen regarding evolution--as a matter of fact (perhaps), Redon's artwork in general was unlike most anything else that existed.  (Redon acknowledged this, of course, saying  "My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.")

 "The Misshapen Polp Floated on the Shores, a Sort of Smiling and Hideous Cyclops", plate 3, 1883.

But I don't see that much being said between the two men, across a small table having tea--though I don't have any hesitation saying that Redon would've had a lot of questions for Darwin.  My feeling is that Darwin wouldn't have that many coming back. 

 

 

Comments

[Ray Girvan]

There's quite interesting background to another artist, Linley Sambourne, who did the "Man is but a worm" cartoon. See The Art of Linley Sambourne: http://segalbooks.blogspot.com/2011/02/art-of-linley-sambourne.html

[John F. Ptak]

Thanks Ray--very nice work on Sambourne. I've tweeted it and will link to it in the post.