Talk:Flammarion engraving

Astral plane
In my opinion this woodcut does not depict an astronomer peering through the Earth's atmosphere to see the universe, but a man piercing the "veil" and seeing beyond the physical plane into the astral plane and beyond. Such is clearly evident by the intangible nature of the world he beholds beyond the veil. -wanderingOne
 * He's looking backstage. You can tell because they're keeping all the rigs and pulleys back there, and old props like Ezekiel's wheel.

¶ This image has something to do with the ancient (or supposedly medieval) notion of a flat earth and a dome of limited thickness of the visible stars, beyond which were the angelic heavens. I am, in any case, very gratified that someone has gone to what must be considerable trouble of researching and assembling information on this picture, which is enormously famous and much reprinted, with so very little generally known of its history. Sussmanbern (talk) 21:15, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

B&W vs Color
I challenge the removal of. This article is about an artwork, and thus a colorized version is hardly redundant. Had it been an article that referenced the piece, then sure. --HantaVirus 13:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * But why this particular colorization, and not any of the myriad others in circulation? The image you bring up is not even one of the better known colorizations (see, e.g., the cover illustration to Boorstin's The Discoverers).  (And, incidentally, what's with the peculiar "Urbi et Orbi" caption?)  I personally think that the original woodcut more than suffices to illustrate this article.  -- Eb.hoop 15:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I totally agree with you. The article is about the woodcut. Not about the colorized versions people have made. The colorized version does nothing for the article. Everything is illustrated by the original woodcut. Nlm1515 22:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This "Urbi et Orbi" colorization is a commercial product, the album cover for Urbi Et Orbi (EP). I think that it has been repeatedly introduced into Wikipedia articles because its artist, or a fan of the artist, is interested in promoting his work. However, regardless of motive, it amounts to Wikipedia endorsing a commercial product, and should, I think, be avoided. RandomCritic (talk) 14:20, 23 January 2011 (UTC)


 * THere seem to be at least five or six other colourings http://images.google.co.uk/images?as_q=&um=1&hl=en&newwindow=1&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=flammarion+woodcut&as_oq=&as_eq=&imgtype=&imgsz=&as_filetype=&imgc=color&as_sitesearch=&safe=off&as_st=y 80.2.192.102 (talk) 13:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Both the color and B&W versions were made to parody the medieval worldview, not by someone who sincerely thought the world might be flat. So I think the quest for an "original" or "authentic" version of the image is misguided. I put the colorized version on the top for aesthetic reasons. Kauffner (talk) 13:19, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it's unacceptable to give precedence to the colorized version over Flammarion's original. For starters, Flammarion's version is a Wikipedia Featured Picture, and it's completely illogical to demote it to a tiny thumbnail in the article about it.  Second, Flammarion's version is, as far as we can ascertain, the original engraving.  The colorized version is just one of maybe hundreds of colorizations in circulation, and does not even correspond to one of the published versions.  Also, it carries an extraneous "Urbi et Orbi" caption, whose purpose is completely obscure to me.  Finally, I personally find the colorized version to be aesthetically much inferior to the original (though the original is improved by removing the surrounding border).  I suspect that the original's status as a Featured Picture is an indication that I'm not alone in this appreciation.  So please don't reintroduce the colorized version without further discussion.  -- Eb.hoop (talk) 00:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Woodcut
How many of you have actually read the article???? as in:

 "is an anonymous wood engraving"

The article is primarily about the fact that this is not a medieval woodcut but a much later wood engraving. Seems to me that people should read first and comment later. To forestall the inevitable: miaow.Freiherrin (talk) 19:40, 7 January 2008 (UTC) And before I forget again, that should also require the change of title to Flammarion wood engraving or, failing that, Flammarion "woodcut". Incorrect destription on the image page should also be changed.Freiherrin (talk) 19:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Removed trivia + external link
I've removed "The ending of the film The Truman Show may have been inspired by the Flammarion woodcut." from the article, which was all of the Trivia section, as there is no evidence for it. Cite a source saying that it was, and it can go back into the article. I've also removed the external link, as it doesn't work. Mike Peel 09:44, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I came to this page to suggest a mention of The Truman Show! It seems a pity to remove that earlier mention; perhaps it could be reworded "The Flammarion Woodcut finds a cinematic echo in the ending of the film The Truman Show where the hero bumps into, and penetrates, the edge of his universe"? Andrew K Robinson 15:06, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

A similar illustration?
"the depiction of a spherical heavenly vault separating the earth from an outer realm is similar to an illustration in Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia of 1544" says the article. It would be nice to have a link or picture of this other illustration for comparison purposes. The woodcut on the Sebastian Munster page does not look similar. Also more about when the illustration may have been created or not. 80.2.192.102 (talk) 13:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of the source, I think the entire image should be shown, not just the familiar cropped square picture. The full image is a rectangle that extends much further to the left and shows more of the mechinations behind the visual universe; the discovery of telescope? The cropped image is the "prettiest" part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.90.217.73 (talk) 18:50, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Purpose and Use
Is this just a fanciful picture? Or was it intended to illustrate or convey a certain idea?

It seems to have been used to convey the idea that Medieval Christianity was "backward" or ignorant, e.g., believing in a Flat Earth. I wonder how influential Danial Boorstin's book was.

History professor Jeffrey Burton Russell blames Boorstin for spreading "the lie" that the Flat Earth idea was widely believed in Europe until the renaissance (see Myth of the Flat Earth).

James Hannam wrote:
 * Anti-clerical history of science writers have promulgated the myth so that even today, in his book The Discoverers, Daniel Boorstin manages to produce a totally misleading account (although he eventually gets Columbus right). His bias shows badly when he castigates Christians for thinking the world was flat when they did not and then praises the erudition of Chinese geographers who actually did believe it.

What's the best way to describe the usage that this image has been put to? --Uncle Ed (talk) 13:03, 22 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I notice that Ed Poor has complained about the unsourced statement that the image was probably just intended by Flammarion as a fanciful illustration of the fact that the sky is not an actual physical barrier. I think that I might have been the one who wrote that originally.  Here, I think we are up against one of the problems of sourcing that's so hard for Wikipedia to deal with.  I understand Wikipedia's wariness of conclusions that are not sourced by publications, but I think it shall be abundantly clear to anyone who actually reads the passage in Flammarion's book surrounding this illustrations, that this is the most plausible interpretation of his intentions.  Here it is in the original (which unfortunately is in French).  Go to page 162 for Flammarion's discussion of the ancient belief that the sky was a barrier, separating us from another realm, and for his mention (without names or attribution) of the story that a missionary found an opening in the "curtain" of the sky.  The famous woodcut itself is on the next page.


 * Whether other people later used the engraving to propagate the myth that medieval Europeans widely believed the Earth to be flat, is a separate issue, probably too complicated and speculative for the article to cover. I can see no reason at all to think that this was Flammarion's intention.  Daniel Boorstin does talk quite a bit about the flat earth in the Discoverers, and I understand Russell's objections in that regard, but other than using the woodcut as a cover illustration (and including it in the the deluxe illustrated edition), he doesn't invoke it at all in his argument.  It's never mentioned in Boorstin's text.  - Eb.hoop (talk) 04:25, 25 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Flammarion's main intention is certainly to dispel the naïve impression that the sky has a tangible, solid existence. He also has, I think, some other subtexts: the superiority of modern (i.e. 19th century) over medieval or ancient knowledge, and the superiority of science to religious legends and fables. The fact that the central character in his composite fable is always a religious personage - missionary, monk, or anchorite -- and his long and sarcastic list of things that might be found in the Empyrean (which his 19th-century translator had to tone down for an English-speaking audience!) point to issues which Flammarion alludes to, but does not address very directly; partly because they were beside the main point, and also because they had a political and religious context in Third Republic France which he could expect his readers to be familiar with. But all that is really too much to include in this article.  It is reasonable, however, to say something about the uses to which the engraving has been put, independent of Flammarion's intent.RandomCritic (talk) 02:22, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Forgery?
What is the rationale for categorising this artwork as a forgery? Simple Machine (talk) 14:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

None.RandomCritic (talk) 19:21, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * it's a strange conundrum. It's supposed to LOOK like an ancient woodcut, but is in fact a 19th century engraving. That kind of makes it a forgery, but on the other hand, nobody said that it WAS an ancient woodcut, it's just an illustration, so it's not.Ericl (talk) 18:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It's neither a woodcut nor a wood engraving. The lines don't look like copperplate or steel engraving either. It's a pen and ink illustration. -- 22:34, 31 May 2021 ZoneAlarm5

Needs improvement
This article fails to state the role that the woodcut plays in Flammarion's book, the relevant text that it illustrates, and the history of this idea in Flammarion's thought and that of its precursors. I will make a stab at supplying some of the deficiencies, but there's a good deal to be said.RandomCritic (talk) 19:21, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

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Similarities
Just some reminding with Hexameron by Hildegard of Bingen 82.126.28.18 (talk) 15:14, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Woodcut or Wood Engraving? No, it's a pen and ink drawing
What's the difference between a woodcut and a wood engraving? The grain of the wood. A wood cut is a relief printed image cut into a plank of wood so that you can sometimes see the grain in the lines of the image. A wood engraving is also a relief printed image cut into the end-grain of wood; you can't see the grain. In both cases, the cuts into the wood make the white spaces in the image and the dark lines in the image are from the wood that is left type-high and inked to print on the paper.

Neither process was used in this image, even though it is made to look like a wood engraving. You can see that the white spaces are extremely varied but the line widths are even, which would be difficult to do with any wood cutting instrument (burin or otherwise). There are lines that cross in the image, which is also hard to do. Overall, the image is most consistent with a pen and ink drawing simulating a wood engraving to make it look older than it is.

Agreed? Can I change the article? ZoneAlarm5 (talk) 22:19, 31 May 2021 (UTC)


 * By what printing process would a "pen-and-ink drawing" have been mass-reproduced in 1888? AnonMoos (talk) 22:42, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Do you happen to know what this kind of 'printable' drawing is called? Unknow0059 (talk) 11:26, 5 August 2021 (UTC)