JF Ptak Science Books

A Sad Bit on Positivist Criminology, 1893 (And on Women & Tattoos)

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2262

In an interesting article in Popular Science Monthly (volume 44, December 1893) Helen Zimmern reviews the work and vision of positivist-criminologist Cesare Lombroso's Criminal Woman.  Lombroso was a believer in certain bits of investigation and experimentation that he took as science. He examined the physical characteristics of criminals and made aggressive assumptions on how the shared statistics of visual clues could elucidate the character of a person.  He measured all sorts of things in prisoners--head shape, skull capacity, all manner of other body part measurement,s hearing ability, strengths,m weaknesses. color determination, acuity, agility, sagacity of facial features, and on and on, and was fairly well satisfied that he had unlocked a code of criminality determined by mostly visual interpretation--in effect, a naked-eye DNA.  It was certainly in keeping with the time and the belief in New Statistics.  Most of it was bunk, dangerous, and useless.  

IT was all taken as a science of sorts at the time, and Ms. Zimmern reviewed the Lombroso work as a scientific, evidentiary document.  Mostly the conclusion are sad and wilting.

Here's a bit from the review, followed by a couple of links to other works in English by Lambroso.  

“...on tattooing in women, the tendency to tattoo being, according to Lombroso, an infallible indication of criminal tendencies.”--Cesare Lombroso, "Criminal Woman" review, page 221. 

 

A Peek into the Future of Modernist Painting--1863

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post   [Part of the History of the Future series.]

I've written on this blog on a number of occasions about the coming of The Modern, about the coming of many modernisms that came to life in the extraordinary period of 1885-1925 (which could even be shaved perhaps to 1895-1920 and further if you're a stickler), when nearly all things "modern" in nearly all fields came to be.  Sometimes though one can see a hint of the future, even though it might not necessarily be recognized at the time.

Such is the whisper of the future in this humorous, somewhat mocking piece on art in the 13 June 1863 issue of Punch, or the London Charivari.  Overall its pretty funny in a 19th century fashion, but what I am taken with most of course is the first piece, the framed non-representational artwork, a taste of the future that wouldn't arrive for another 50 years with Wassily Kandinsky.  But here it is, or here is something, presented as art, in 1863, and with no discernible, naturalistic subject matter. 

Even in satire, seeing such a picture give some pause--if for no other reason, that even here in the early stretch of Abstract Expressionism, that such an image would appear in a very popular journal and have (a) no impact  and (b) not an ounce of staying power. 

On Vast Numbers in War, 1918

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

[Source: National Library of Scotland, First World War Official Photographs, here. My estimate is that there are about 10,000 soldiers in this photo, or about 1/10th of 1 percent of all German POWs of WWI]

At the end of WWI the Imperial German Army was losing battles, and int hose losing battle thousands and thousands of soldiers were killed and wounded, and thousands more were taken prisoner.  This remarkable photograph is a tale in itself of the vastness of the undertaking of that war--it is a small section of one large group of German prisoners taken in the battle of St. Quentin Canal, October 2, 1918.  Five weeks before the end of the war, and I am sure every German soldier knew the war was lost.  Perhaps it was a physical relief to be captured at this point, to be removed from the feed line of death in which millions perished and placed under guard for the remainder of what would be from this point a short end-game.  The photograph has a visceral feeling of hope to it, these men now not going to die, their lives saved to short-wait the end of the war, becoming part of the fortunate 35% of the entire German army of 11.2 million who made it out--they were a piece of the million soldiers taken prisoner, and not part of the 6 million comrades who were killed or wounded.  

Here's another view of the same mass of men, taken froma  slightly different angle, though here many men are looking at the photographer:

From the National Library of Scotland site:

A Finely Designed Microscope Ad, 1890

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

I'm just stopping for a moment in the MArch 16, 1890 issue of Nature to admire this lovely add for Browning's "Perfect" Microscope.  In the issue it is about two inches square--it is just a nicely designed thing.