Rare Books from Falk Library on Exhibit in Amsterdam
Fierce Friends: Artists & Animals in the Industrial Era, 1750-1920 is a joint effort of Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum and Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art.
Two books from the HSLS rare book collectionwill be featured in an ambitious interdisciplinary exhibition about animals in art. Fierce Friends: Artists & Animals in the Industrial Era, 1750-1920 is a joint effort of Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum and Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art. The exhibit will run from October 5, 2005 through February 5, 2006 at the Van Gogh Museum. Next spring it will travel to The Carnegie Museum of Art for display from March 25 -- August 28, 2006.
In support of this significant exhibition, Falk Library agreed to lend English and French editions of Johann Caspar Lavater’s Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe (Essays on physiognomy designed to promote the knowledge and the love of mankind), originally published in 1775-1778. On loan are Volume 2 of the English edition Essays on physiognomy: designed to promote the knowledge and the love of mankind, London, 1792; and Volume 9 of the French edition L’art de connaitre les homes par la physiognomie (The art of knowing people by [studying their] physiognomy), Paris, 1807.
Swiss theologian and mystic Johann Caspar Lavater (1741–1801) is chiefly remembered for his work on physiognomy — the art of determining character from facial characteristics. Many of Lavater’s contemporaries considered physiognomy a pseudoscience, and ridiculed his interest in penetrating the insights of character by studying physical features. However, he believed in the interaction of mind and body. His studies, rooted deeply in his religious beliefs, led to writing his main work on physiognomy, which established his name in Europe.
Lavater’s analysis of famous figures accompanied by portraits and engravings contributed greatly to the appeal this work had for readers, and his comparisons between animals and humans influenced animal artists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Both of the books loaned for the exhibit will be presented in the context of other artifacts illustrating human-animal relationships, in order to explore the connections between artists and the leading ideas and debates about animals in their time.
If you cannot make it to Amsterdam this season, you can simply wait until 2006 to view the exhibit in Pittsburgh. Visit The Carnegie Museum of Art next spring to see these two rare books from the HSLS collection displayed as part of the Fierce Friends exhibit.
--Gosia Fort
