Laura J.
Snyder’s book Eye of the
Beholder is a work on early
modern history but can just as easily be read as an adventure story.
Imagine being the first person to peer into a previously unknown world.
Moreover, suppose that this never before seen realm is only touching distance
away. It is a thought that when fully grasped and allowed to marinate in juices
of possibilities sets the heart beating quicker. Just imagine being surrounded
by family, friends and colleagues and not one of them has seen or experienced
what you have. I think anyone faced with a similar situation would burn with a
chemical hot desire to communicate what had been found. This is what two
seventeenth century Dutch luminaries experienced: Vermeer and Leeuwenhoek, the
former a painter the latter a natural philosopher. Both men were born in the
same year (1632) in an era when science was just beginning to flex its muscles.
Each made a discovery and each wanted to communicate this new vision, Vermeer
with paintings and Van Leeuwenhoek with letters and reports to fellow natural
philosophers.
Eye of
the Beholder is set in
golden age Netherlands in the 1600s. Vermeer is dabbling with mirrors and
lenses and with a contraption called the camera obscura all in an effort to
expand the boundaries of his art. These gadgets aided him in seeing the play of
light, colour and shadow in new ways. In one painting, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter,
Vermeer used many different colours to convey in scrupulous detail shadows cast
by the various objects in the room, map, chairs and the like. The actual colour
blue is used sparingly on the woman’s outfit. The shadows in the folds of her
dress are conveyed with browns and blacks. Our minds supply the blue necessary
to complete the dress to see, in other words, what is not there. The woman
herself casts no shadow. Leeuwenhoek used the recently invented microscope to
make startling discoveries of objects too small for the human eye to observe.
Without knowing it he stumbled onto the world of microscopic bacteria.
Leeuwenhoek became so enamoured with what he saw, all those strange swirling,
floating microbes, that he came to think of them as pets. He mentions in
letters to friends missing the tiny creatures living in his vials when he went
off on vacation. What is common to Vermeer and Leeuwenhoek is their
appropriation of the power of perspective. Each in his own way came to
understand the power of learning to see. Snyder does a great job conveying the
fascination and joy both men felt about their respective discoveries.
Leeuwenhoek’s
story (Vermeer’s also) should be understood against the backdrop of the growing
influence of science. There was stern reaction against authority in the
seventeen and subsequent centuries. The enlightenment, which had not yet hit
its full stride, was taking hold of hearts and minds. The phrase bandied about
was “See for yourself,” meaning, don’t rely on others—the so called experts or
people in positions of authority—to tell you what is really there, make your
own independent determination of the facts of the matter. Leeuwenhoek, a
religious man, did not see himself as battling against an established order but
as describing something new. It is that near childlike innocence and delight
that makes his story so compelling.
I would
recommend this book to someone who is interested in the history of science, art
and golden age Netherlands. I would also recommend it to anyone who wants to
experience what it would be like to be the first to discover something that no
one else has seen. The Eye of
the Beholder offers readers
an opportunity to experience a leap into the unknown.
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