Rebecca Ford
64
New Earth and the New Heavens.
10 Such images, and their cosmological associations, were unlikely to have found favour with the materialist d’Holbach.
Different as they are from Encyclopédie images of the practical arts, it might be asked then, in what ways these images can be seen
to fit with the Encyclopédie project and its attitude to knowledge. Although they might seem to be something of an “optional extra” to the
plates on the arts of which Diderot was so proud, the plates on largescale natural phenomena are nevertheless valuable firstly in the snapshot they offer of the ways in which the eighteenth century related to
the mineral kingdom, and secondly in that despite their difference
from “typical” plates on the arts, such images can nevertheless be understood as being closely linked to the Encyclopédie’s attitude to
knowledge and to d’Holbach’s articles on mineralogy.
The varied provenance of these plates reveals in itself the variety of contexts in which the eighteenth century related to the natural
world.
11 Natural history attracted a huge following in the mideighteenth century, and as Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton, Buffon’s assistant at the Jardin du Roi, noted in his own article on natural history
for the Encyclopédie, the subject was open to study by a variety of
people in a variety of ways:
L’Histoire naturelle est inépuisable; elle est également propre à exercer les
génies les plus élevés, et à servir de délassement et d’amusement aux gens qui
sont occupés d’autres choses par devoir, et à ceux qui tâchent d’éviter l’ennui
d’une vie oisive; l’Histoire naturelle les occupe par des recherches amusantes,
faciles, intéressantes, et variées, et par des lectures aussi agréables
qu’instructives. Elle donne de l’exercice au corps et à l’esprit; nous sommes
environnés des productions de la nature, et nous en sommes nous-mêmes la plus
belle partie. On peut s’appliquer à l’Histoire naturelle en tout tems, en tout lieu
et à tout âge. (“Histoire Naturelle”, VIII, 228)
___________________________
10 Stephen Jay Gould, Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle, 2
nd ed. (London: Penguin, 1988),
pp. 21-59.
11 Although no study has undertaken so far to determine the engraver and/or original
source for every image included in the Encyclopédie’s eleven volumes of plates, a
considerable amount of research has been done by scholars such as Richard N.
Schwab, Walter E. Rex, John Lough, and Madeleine Pinault into those Encyclopédie
contributors involved in the execution of the plates. See Schwab, Rex, and Lough, Inventory of Diderot’s “Encyclopédie”, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century,
223 (1984); Pinault, “Diderot et les illustrateurs de l’Encyclopédie”, Revue de l’Art,
66 (1984), pp. 17-38.
64
New Earth and the New Heavens.
10 Such images, and their cosmological associations, were unlikely to have found favour with the materialist d’Holbach.
Different as they are from Encyclopédie images of the practical arts, it might be asked then, in what ways these images can be seen
to fit with the Encyclopédie project and its attitude to knowledge. Although they might seem to be something of an “optional extra” to the
plates on the arts of which Diderot was so proud, the plates on largescale natural phenomena are nevertheless valuable firstly in the snapshot they offer of the ways in which the eighteenth century related to
the mineral kingdom, and secondly in that despite their difference
from “typical” plates on the arts, such images can nevertheless be understood as being closely linked to the Encyclopédie’s attitude to
knowledge and to d’Holbach’s articles on mineralogy.
The varied provenance of these plates reveals in itself the variety of contexts in which the eighteenth century related to the natural
world.
11 Natural history attracted a huge following in the mideighteenth century, and as Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton, Buffon’s assistant at the Jardin du Roi, noted in his own article on natural history
for the Encyclopédie, the subject was open to study by a variety of
people in a variety of ways:
L’Histoire naturelle est inépuisable; elle est également propre à exercer les
génies les plus élevés, et à servir de délassement et d’amusement aux gens qui
sont occupés d’autres choses par devoir, et à ceux qui tâchent d’éviter l’ennui
d’une vie oisive; l’Histoire naturelle les occupe par des recherches amusantes,
faciles, intéressantes, et variées, et par des lectures aussi agréables
qu’instructives. Elle donne de l’exercice au corps et à l’esprit; nous sommes
environnés des productions de la nature, et nous en sommes nous-mêmes la plus
belle partie. On peut s’appliquer à l’Histoire naturelle en tout tems, en tout lieu
et à tout âge. (“Histoire Naturelle”, VIII, 228)
___________________________
10 Stephen Jay Gould, Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle, 2
nd ed. (London: Penguin, 1988),
pp. 21-59.
11 Although no study has undertaken so far to determine the engraver and/or original
source for every image included in the Encyclopédie’s eleven volumes of plates, a
considerable amount of research has been done by scholars such as Richard N.
Schwab, Walter E. Rex, John Lough, and Madeleine Pinault into those Encyclopédie
contributors involved in the execution of the plates. See Schwab, Rex, and Lough, Inventory of Diderot’s “Encyclopédie”, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century,
223 (1984); Pinault, “Diderot et les illustrateurs de l’Encyclopédie”, Revue de l’Art,
66 (1984), pp. 17-38.