Mary Knights

I had got the foresaid water taken out of the ditches and runnels on the 30th of August: and on coming home, while I was busy looking at the multifarious very little animalcules a-swimming in this water, I saw floating in it, and seeming to move of themselves, a great many green round particles, of the bigness of sand-grains.1

antony van Leeuwenhoek, 2 January, 1700

angela Valamanesh’s artworks are beguiling. although characterised by a subdued palette, simplified forms, a refined use of materials and subtle gestures, her artwork is deeply unsettling and refers to a complex web of historic, scientific and philosophical ideas. Quietly insisting that everything is connected, Valamanesh traces correspondences between disparate living things and poetically reiterates patterns that recur frequently in nature. Her most recent body of work, which includes drawings and ceramic objects, is in part an outcome of research undertaken in 2014 at the smithsonian institute’s Dibner Library of the History of Science and technology, and the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History in Washington DC. There she scoured rare scientific books and papers from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries for illustrations of organisms and structures invisible to the naked eye. in particular she sought out early illustrations that captured the excitement of discovery, as miniscule things were revealed by microscopes and magnifying glasses for the first time. Some of the earliest and best-known pictures of ‘minute bodies’ are illustrations by the natural philosopher Robert Hooke (1635-1703) published in Micrographia in 1665 by

the nature of things:angela valamanesh

the royal society, London (in 1665). hooke’s interests ranged widely and his contribution to knowledge included recognising the organic origins of fossils; coining the word “cell” to describe the honeycomb structure of plant matter; and suggesting that gravity impacted on the movement of ‘heavenly bodies’. Shifting human understanding of the natural world, Micrographia included extraordinarily detailed copperplate etchings of a magnified flea, a louse and bark from a cork oak (Quercus suber), as well as telescopic images of moon craters.2

twelve years later in 1676, antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) a draper and citizen of Delft, reported his discovery of microscopic organisms, which he called “animalcules”. As an apprentice in amsterdam, van Leeuwenhoek had seen magnifying glasses used to do thread-counts and check the quality of fabrics. After establishing his own drapery and inspired by hooke’s Micrographia, he experimented with small spherical glass lenses and crafted single lens microscopes. Van Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes caught the attention of a Dutch physician, who realised that the degree of magnification he had achieved was higher than that of an Italian lens-maker whose craftsmanship was being lauded in scientific circles. Encouraged, van Leeuwenhoek described his findings to the Royal Society in London in dozens of handwritten letters. However, when he first reported observing “animalcules” he was ridiculed until his claim was verified in 1677 by a group of eight respectable men including three ministers of religion. gaining considerably less attention than his earlier discovery of “animalcules”, in a letter dated 17 September, 1683 van Leeuwenhoek revealed that he had seen “very little living animalcules”—now understood to be the first time bacteria had been observed. Van Leeuwenhoek explained that he had scrapped some muck from a gap between his own teeth and collected samples from four others, including the mouths of two old men who had never cleaned their teeth, and:

…saw with great wonder, that in the said matter there were many very little living animalcules, very prettily a-moving. The biggest sort...had a very strong and swift motion, and shot through the water (or spittle) like a pike does through the water. The second sort... oft-times spun round like a top... and these were far more in number.3

Van Leeuwenhoek, considered the founder of microbiology, was the first to discover microorganisms and to observe blood cells flowing in capillaries. His study of the spermatozoa of molluscs, fish, birds and mammals led him to propose that they were the primary factor in reproduction and contained anatomical ‘vessels’ of the animal in miniature. Van Leeuwenhoek’s delight in sharing what he saw through his microscopes is evident in the colourful descriptions in his letters. A poor draftsman, he commissioned artists to document some of his discoveries.4 although van Leeuwenhoek enthusiastically and generously disseminated his observations and speculations to peers, he withheld the techniques that he used to make his strongest lenses and apparently showed inferior ones to those who were overly curious.5 A series of Valamanesh’s images sketched with watercolour on paper allude to the marvellous and at the time barely plausible, early microscopic discoveries. in Observations No. 1 and Observations No. 3, as if depicting a magnified drop of pond or ditch water, a swarm of organisms appears to wriggle and squirm. Inside a circle of light framed by black, similar to the view through a simple optical microscope, the silhouettes of the microbes appear. A puzzling array of features that could be filaments, cilia or flagella protrude from globules, splodges, splashes and splats, suggesting a plethora of mysterious life-forms. remarkably, almost one hundred and fifty years passed before the importance of van Leeuwenhoek’s report of seeing “many very little living animalcules”—bacteria—was realised. While there was delay

OppositeAngela Valamanesh

Various friends and enemies No. 6, 2014Photo courtesy the artist and GAGPROJECTS, Adelaide/Berlin

Photo Michal Kluvanek

3 7 c o n t e m p o r a r y v i s u a l a r t + c u l t u r e b r o a d s h e e t 4 4 _ 1 2 01 5

t h e n a t u r e o F t h i n G s : a n G e l a v a l a m a n e s h

before bacteriology was established as a science, in the eighteenth century van Leeuwenhoek’s microscopic studies led to some extraordinary advances in physiology. Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-99), an Italian polymath and Catholic priest, was familiar with van Leeuwenhoek’s work.6 To investigate questions about the beginnings of life, Spallanzani, undertook a number of experiments that cast doubt on the prevalent notion that life-forms, such as maggots, could come into existence through spontaneous generation. he also investigated the role of the male in reproduction and discovered that amphibian and mammalian reproduction required contact between semen and an ovum to begin. Spallanzani held the belief that the ‘germs’ of all living things were made by God ‘in the beginning’ and were passed down through females in ova, which just needed to be activated by semen to develop. The actual spermatozoa he surmised were irrelevant parasites. Despite this, he was the first to use in-vitro techniques to fertilize frogs’ eggs and in 1784 successfully artificially inseminated a spaniel which delivered three puppies.7 Eventually, with the benefit of increasingly powerful microscopes, German scientist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (1795-1876) revealed the significance of van Leeuwenhoek’s first observations of bacteria. he was awarded the inaugural Leeuwenhoek Medal by the royal Dutch Society for Microbiology in 1877 for diligently collecting, identifying, naming and illustrating thousands of microscopic organisms, including a rod-shaped bacteria that in 1828 he named “Bacterium”. Valamenesh’s work Various friends and enemies, No. 3 consists of a collection of thirteen unidentified specimens. The proximity of the ceramic forms to each other accentuates the similarities and differences of their distinctive shapes. Unnamed, they are at once familiar and mystifying and perhaps represent nascent life forms, a collection of microscopic algae, an assortment of pollens and spores, or deadly pathogens. Superstitions, religious beliefs and commonly held assumptions about the nature of life, death and disease—such as illnesses being caused by foul smelling miasmas, unbalanced humours, evil spirits or god as a punishment for sin—were re-evaluated in the nineteenth century as microbiologists disrupted the known order of things. Famously, as well as noting that fermentation was caused by microbes and contributing to the understanding of immunity

and vaccines, Louis Pasteur (1822-95) advanced van Leeuwenhoek and Spallanzani’s findings to prove conclusively that living things did not spontaneously come into existence when non-living material began to spoil. Ferdinand Cohn (1828-1898) classified bacteria according to shapes—spirals, spheres, rods, and threads—and revealed that some bacilli under duress could transform into dormant endospores. By studying tuberculosis, cholera and anthrax, Robert Koch (1843-1910) proved that there was a causal relationship between pathogens and particular diseases and that ‘spontaneous’ outbreaks of anthrax in cattle were the result of spores that could survive dormant for a period of time and re-emerge when conditions were conducive. Some of Valamanesh’s images allude to the innovations in staining techniques, which enhanced the visibility of the often transparent micro-organisms. Alarmingly, it became apparent that a single drop of drinking water might contain innumerable algae, bacteria, ciliates, larvae, rotifers and protozoa. Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), who contracted tuberculosis while working with Koch, developed aniline methylene blue dye that for the first time enabled various types of blood cells to be differentiated. He also synthesized Salvarsan by modifying the chemical properties of a stain used to see the spirochete which causes syphilis, into a compound that would damage it, and coined the term “magic bullet” for drugs designed to target specific pathogens.8 Refining Ehrlich’s blue stain, Hans Christian Gram (1853-1938) developed a staining and counterstaining technique, still used today, that enabled microbiologists to distinguish between gram positive bacteria which stained violet, and gram negative which appeared red.9 in Small Creatures, a multitude of bizarre life forms—that might be real or imaginary—have been drawn with white casein, a chalky milk-based paint, onto sheets of heavily textured black paper. Their shapes are opaque against the black background as if fixed and flushed in vitro with a negative Indian ink or a nigrosin stain. Flashes of napthal yellow highlight a curious distinguishing feature that many of the organisms have in common—perhaps a clump of photosynthetic filaments or a corona of cilia used for propulsion. as well as images made by microbiologists prior to the use of photography, Valamanesh’s recent work is influenced by early anatomical and botanical illustrations, especially the collages made by Mary Delaney

Angela Valamaneshtop: Ova No.3, 2014

bottom: Ova No.2, 2014Photos courtesy the artist and GAGPROJECTS, Adelaide/Berlin

Photo Michal Kluvanek

(1700-88), which are held in the British Museum. Starting when she was seventy-two years of age, Delaney, a natural philosopher, carefully cut out the shapes of hundreds of plant specimens from coloured papers, glued them onto black card and labelled them according to the Linnaean taxonomy. Devised by Carl Linnaeus (1707-78) and published as Systema Naturae in 1735, the original Linnaean taxonomy divided the natural world into three kingdoms—animal, vegetable and mineral—which in turn were ranked into family, order, genus and species. This pre-Darwinian system of classification was based on the morphology of internal and external form and structures rather than evolutionary linage or function. Apparently, the explorer and botanist Sir Joseph Banks stated of Delaney’s botanical illustrations that they, “were the only imitations of nature that he had ever seen, from which he could venture to describe botanically any plant without the least fear of committing an error”.10 Unlike Delaney’s intention to classify botanical specimens according to similar features, in order to understand their place within a coherent hierarchical system, Valamanesh’s illustrations become more ambiguous the longer you look at them. in Near and Far, No. 1, 2 & 3, a tangle of white lines stained with a wash of colour resemble, and were inspired by, drawings of neurons by the neurologist santiago ramón y Cajal (1852-1934), but could be mistaken for threads of fungal hyphae. Even more disconcerting is The Anatomy of Plants and Animals, No. 1, in which slivers of a matter seem to shift between representing segments of a dissected human brain and slices of cauliflower. While the three Linnaean kingdoms have been superseded with six kingdoms—Bacteria, Protozoa, Chromista, Plantae, Fungi, Animalia—living things that combine attributes associated with the older categories of animal, vegetable and mineral still seem bizarre. Along with animalcules, antony van Leeuwenhoek in his letter to the royal society, dated 2 January, 1700, described floating “green round particles” the size of grains of sand that appeared to move by themselves. He was probably referring to Volvox, a green algae that thrives in pond water. Although they are single-cell organisms each with flagella and the ability to photosynthesise sunlight, they connect to form spherical colonies and behave as a single multi-cellular organism. Enabling the whole colony to move about purposefully, some of the organisms have specialised functions. The colony reproduces

asexually, by creating daughter colonies with identical genetic material, and sexually. Colonies may be male, female or hermaphrodite (although not both male and female at the same time) developing ovum (a single enlarged unicellular organism) and sperm through division, which are then released into the water. Perhaps the most disturbing of Valamanesh’s works are a series of unglazed, elliptical ceramic forms, which like Volvox, fossilised trilobites and carnivorous Venus flytraps seem to transgress and disrupt the commonly assumed order of things. Made from mud—rich in mineral oxides and organic matter—the material itself suggests the primordial origins of life. Revealing patterns that reoccur in nature and alluding to the connections between all living things, in Ova 1 a microscopic ovum magnified to the size of a duck egg appears to be erupting through the dilated muscular rings of a fleshy cervix. The ossified contractions are almost palpable as the contents are disgorged in a terrible spasm. in Ova 2 the pursed lips of a large barnacle or plate coral are seductive, sensual—and almost human. Notes1 Robert Hooke, Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and inquiries thereupon, London: Royal Society, 1664, www.gutenberg.org/files/15491/15491-h/15491-h.htm; accessed 7 January 20152 Antony van Leeuwenhoek, excerpt from letter to Royal Society, London, dated 17 September 1683, Randy Alfred, ‘Sept. 17 1683: Van Leeuwenhoek Gives Us Reason to Brush and Floss’, www.archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/09/dayintech_09173 Clifford Dobell, Antony van Leeuwenhoek and his “Little Animals”, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932: 424 www.history-of-the-microscope.org/anton-van-leeuwenhoek-microscope-history.php5 Mariano Gacto, ‘The Bicentenary of a Forgotten Giant: Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799)’, Internal Microbiol, 1999, 2: 273-274, www.im.microbios.org/08december99/11%20Gacto%20(P).pdf6 Clara Pinto-Correia, The Ovary of Eve: Egg and Sperm and Preformation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997: 197-2087 Salvarsan was used for the treatment of syphilis until the discovery of antibiotic properties of mould and development of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 19288 www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/wimsmall/smal3.html.9 Christine Cariati, ‘Flora Delanica: Art and Botany in Mrs Delany’s “paper mosaicks”’, www.venetianred.net/2009/12/04/flora-delanica-art-and-botany-in-mrs-delanys-paper-mosaicks10 British Museum, www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pd/m/mary_delany,_winter_cherry.aspx.

3 9 c o n t e m p o r a r y v i s u a l a r t + c u l t u r e b r o a d s h e e t 4 4 _ 1 2 01 5

Angela Valamaneshtop: Flesh No.4, 2014

bottom: Flesh No.5, 2014Photos courtesy the artist and GAGPROJECTS, Adelaide/Berlin

Photo Michal Kluvanek