The Entwinement of Spectacle and Specimen: Mount Vesuvius in the Late Eighteenth Century

Abstract

abstract:Late eighteenth-century representational strategies of Vesuvius that combine spectacular images of eruption with scientifically informed ones of natural process show a clear, yet inadequately examined connection between the aesthetic category of the sublime and natural history. Visual material, such as that found in the 1768 supplement to the Encyclopédie (1751–72) and in William Hamilton's 1779 supplement to Campi Phlegraei (1776), suggests porous boundaries between aesthetics and natural history. The entwinement of spectacle and specimen was a crucial means of comprehending and describing volcanic phenomena. Examining the relationship between the sublime and natural history furthers a more nuanced comprehension of the sublime beyond the nascent genre of landscape painting or the discrete aesthetic category. It also creates a richer understanding of natural history as it transformed into more specialized, professional—or more "scientific"—disciplines, such as geology and volcanology.