ABSTRACT

While luminaries in theoretical and quantum physics such as Heisenberg and Schrdinger envisioned the mechanics of the world running largely counter to sense experience, artists such as Picasso and Duchamp experimented with visual forms that, in an effort to resonate with the new physics, made striking, creative departures from conventional visual forms. This chapter contributes to this more complex, nuanced account of art and science by focusing upon one particular area of engagement, namely the performative work of the frog. According to Jann (1992), the long tradition of human-animal analogy expressed in physiognomy was very much a harbinger of Darwin's destabilization of the human-animal divide. The chapter suggests that the imagery deployed by physiognomists, which can be seen from our post-Darwinian perspective to blur the distinction between Man and Beast, was actually intended to perform the opposite; that is, to confirm, by the singularity of the lines presented, the transcendence of all of humanity.