La Nature Se Dévoliant Devant La Science

The Scarab Beatle pinning the folds of
the drapery, beneath the exposed
bosom of the figure, acts as a signifier to
the Egyptian origin of the representation
and alludes perhaps to a more complex
symbolism of death and resurrection
and the contradictory character of
nature itself. Perhaps it is a subtle
warning that natures secrets maybe
revealed, but at a cost.
There have always been two
contradictory approaches to
Detail of the Scarab holding the drapery
understanding nature and as Heraclitus
pronounced Phusis kruptesthai philei –
‘Nature loves to hide’. The philosopher Pierre Hadot in his book ‘The Veil of Isis: An Essay on
the History of the Idea of Nature’, identifies the two approaches to nature as the
Promethian, which through scientific
investigation and discovery attempts
to dominate nature and forcibly
remove her veil, and the Orphic or
poetic approach which seeks a unity
with nature and views her
divestment as a vulgar and
uncivilised act.
In Europe from the time of the
Enlightenment scientific investigation
played an increasingly important role
in everyday life and Western
consciousness. With the increasing
pace of discovery, with mankind harnessing almost
magical forces such as electricity and X-rays, it was
Genius unveiling a bust of nature by Goethe
with the bust of nature in the form of the
veiled polymastic Isis
only natural as the nineteenth century drew to a close, as Steven Armstrong writes, to
conceive of this scientific progress as ‘Removing the Veil’.
Barrias conceived this figural masterpiece therefore at a time when the two opposing ideas
of nature were perhaps at their most divergent. Yet the genius of his sculptural approach
and the relationship of his iconography to his artistic expression achieve something more
tangible – a romantic vision of nature.
As Hadot suggests there is an alternative approach to the unveiling of Isis (or nature), an
expression non datur, one suggested by the Romantic vision of Rousseau, Goethe, and
Schelling, an allegorical expression of the sublime - ‘Nature is art and art is nature’.