Rebecca Ford
70
natural scene, the recurrent impact of the image is dependent upon the
tiny human figures. It is the presence of mankind that allows the image to “speak”: even if the rationalizing action of the human mind is
not as visibly at work as in the breaking-down of machines and tools
in the plates on the mechanical arts, it is the human presence in the
plates on mineralogy which help to lend the phenomena their significance, and justify their very inclusion in the Encyclopédie.
That this contextualizing of natural phenomena within the
framework of human activity was sometimes deliberate, and not simply the result of borrowing ready-drawn images from other sources, is
evident from one of the plates depicting Auvergne basalt (fig. 4). De
Boissieu’s original drawing was of the rock formation itself, devoid of
any human element; the Encyclopédie plate, however, places this scientific observation firmly within a human context. Beside the two men
in the bottom right-hand corner of the image, themselves standing in
front of a cottage butting onto the rock face, a naturally-formed courtyard has been added to the foreground, and the plate’s subtitle informs
the reader not only that this courtyard is the location for the local village’s annual fairs, but also that the three rocks atop the basalt columns
are the remains of “l’ancien Chateau de la Tour d’Auvergne”. In this
way, Nature is humanized; and while the ruins of the old castle serve
as a reminder of humanity’s ephemeral nature when compared to the
rocks’ resilience to the ravages of time, man’s ability to stamp his
presence on the natural world and to adapt it to his own ends is made
abundantly clear.
This appropriation of nature by man is most clearly visible,
however, in the plate showing the Giant’s Causeway (fig. 5). Although
what immediately seizes the reader’s attention is the rock face, the image is soon seen to teem with human life, the various groupings of
people representing the different ways in which humans colonized this
vast natural edifice. In the left foreground two men examine individual
rocks; on the right-hand side of the image is a small group of people
gathering food or driftwood from the rock pools; and in addition to
these two groupings engaging with Nature as a source of knowledge of
physical sustenance, there are a number of other figures who seem to
envisage the Giant’s Causeway as a consumer product, a monument to
be visited and admired, but little more. On the left of the image stands
a man contemplating the vast rock face: although dwarfed by the basalt
columns, his field of vision neatly encompasses the entirety of the fa-
70
natural scene, the recurrent impact of the image is dependent upon the
tiny human figures. It is the presence of mankind that allows the image to “speak”: even if the rationalizing action of the human mind is
not as visibly at work as in the breaking-down of machines and tools
in the plates on the mechanical arts, it is the human presence in the
plates on mineralogy which help to lend the phenomena their significance, and justify their very inclusion in the Encyclopédie.
That this contextualizing of natural phenomena within the
framework of human activity was sometimes deliberate, and not simply the result of borrowing ready-drawn images from other sources, is
evident from one of the plates depicting Auvergne basalt (fig. 4). De
Boissieu’s original drawing was of the rock formation itself, devoid of
any human element; the Encyclopédie plate, however, places this scientific observation firmly within a human context. Beside the two men
in the bottom right-hand corner of the image, themselves standing in
front of a cottage butting onto the rock face, a naturally-formed courtyard has been added to the foreground, and the plate’s subtitle informs
the reader not only that this courtyard is the location for the local village’s annual fairs, but also that the three rocks atop the basalt columns
are the remains of “l’ancien Chateau de la Tour d’Auvergne”. In this
way, Nature is humanized; and while the ruins of the old castle serve
as a reminder of humanity’s ephemeral nature when compared to the
rocks’ resilience to the ravages of time, man’s ability to stamp his
presence on the natural world and to adapt it to his own ends is made
abundantly clear.
This appropriation of nature by man is most clearly visible,
however, in the plate showing the Giant’s Causeway (fig. 5). Although
what immediately seizes the reader’s attention is the rock face, the image is soon seen to teem with human life, the various groupings of
people representing the different ways in which humans colonized this
vast natural edifice. In the left foreground two men examine individual
rocks; on the right-hand side of the image is a small group of people
gathering food or driftwood from the rock pools; and in addition to
these two groupings engaging with Nature as a source of knowledge of
physical sustenance, there are a number of other figures who seem to
envisage the Giant’s Causeway as a consumer product, a monument to
be visited and admired, but little more. On the left of the image stands
a man contemplating the vast rock face: although dwarfed by the basalt
columns, his field of vision neatly encompasses the entirety of the fa-