Historical Perspectives on the Arts, Sciences and Technology

Historical Perspectives on the Arts, Sciences and Technology David R.Topper Readers are invited to send information to the section Editor at the Department of History, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3B 2E9, Canada. ‘Symbol systems’ seems to be the catch phrase of much recent discussion on the nature of art. Subsuming under onz heading diverse topics such as representation , abstraction, realism and symbolism, this emphasis on symbolism may be classed as a generic theory of art. On the disciplinary level, this approach brings together theoreticians from such diverse fields as art history, the philosophy of art, the psychology of perception, and linguistics. Whether this generic approach to art is really innovative, however, remains to be seen. The specific issue of symbolism has always been at the core of art theory. An indication of the complexity of this issue may be gleaned from the various journal articles I review here, which address topics that range from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Probably the key problem with focusing on symbolism is the basic issue of interpretation. What, specifically, does an individual symbol mean, both in general and in the concrete context in which it is used? One manner of classifying symbols is according to their generality and specificity. At one end of such a spectrum would be collective symbols understood by large groups of people (the American flag, the Soviet hammer and sickle, the Christian cross); at the opposite extreme would be personal symbols (as when lovers recognize ‘our song’). In between are found such symbols as the Greek head that appears on the front of this journal, referring to Pergamon Press. I do not know why Pergamon chose this specific head, although I am sure there was an explicit rationale. The five articles I review in this column all deal in some manner with the problems that arise with all symbols. Dixon’s article on the meaning of Bosch’s art reveals how symbols that most probably were clearly understood by Bosch and certain people in his day may be difficult for us to decipher today. Thus the historian must dig through obscure mystical texts to approach the meaning of some symbols. Pingree’s and Lynch’s articles both deal with Diirer’sMelencoZia I,a work dense with symbolism but little understood after centuries of attempted interpretations. Pingree, like Dixon, attributes pseudoscientific references to the symbols. Lynch, after cracking a formal ‘code’ of one of the symbols, then speculates upon its meaning as a personal symbol for Diirer. This shows that personal symbols are not unique to the twentieth century, although one must acknowledge that they abound more in this century than in the past. Pollock’s article on van Gogh demonstrates how the historian can approach symbolism from a socio-psychological viewpoint. The final article I review, Ballerini’s analysis of Stieglitz, further discloses that symbolism is as much an issue in photography as in the other visual arts. L. S. Dixon “Alchemical Eggs”, The Sciences (March/April, 1983) pp. 38-42. It is often said that contemporary scientists know more and more about less and less. Perhaps closer to the truth is that the domain of science has narrowed over the centuries. Whereas ancient and medieval science encompassed theology and philosophy and dealt with matters involving values and ethics, postNewtonian science has concentrated primarily upon the more empirically testable areas of what was previously called ‘knowledge’ (scientia, in Latin). In the course of this contraction of knowledge certain areas were discarded as nonscientific (or at least as pseudo-scientific) -subjects such as astrology, numerology and alchemy. A case in point arises in Dixon’s article. She asserts that the cryptic art of the fifteenth century Dutchman Hieronymus (Jerome) Bosch is explainable in terms of alchemical symbolism. She studies Bosch’s well-known work, the so-called Garden of Earthly Delights triptych, and interprets the scenes as representing the crucial alchemical process of distillation. This four-step process of “conjunction”, “coagulation”, “putrification”, and “vivification” represents the cyclic creation, destruction, and rebirth of the world (a process also entailing religious symbolism). Dixon points out that, in general, the first three alchemical steps are symbolized in the three internal panels...