In the old pharmacy in the town of Calw in Southern Germany one can see a somewhat unusal painting. It depicts a paradisic scenere with animals and two humans. The humans consists of one Black woman and one white male. The painting is made by an unknown artist sometime in the 18th century. The two human figures have been interpreted as Adam and Eve. If that interpretation is right the painting is unique and hints on another way of see racial diversity than the common hierarchical way that was to become the dominant one in western thinking until the middle of the 20th century.
quote:THE town of Calw in Southern Germany has played an important part in the beginnings of genetics. Here JC Kolreuter (1733-1806) carried out some of his work which established firmly the existence of sexuality in plants and resulted in the first controlled production of plant hybrids, and here KF Gartner (1772-1850) experimented for over 25 years in Kolreuter's tradition and became one of the leading plant hybridizers before Mendel. These men were members of a group of the many distinguished pharmacists and physicians of this region who, as' accomplished amateurs, made fundamental contributions to scientific knowledge. The Gartner family was associated closely with the Alte Apotheke, Calw's pharmacy. When, in 1692, its building was destroyed by Louis XIV's army, Achatius Gartner (1662-1728) was charged with the erection of a new structure. It still stands, serving its old purpose. Inside, the modern student of race finds a curious symbol. It is a painting of Paradise on a door panel, probably dating to around 1710.* There is the lion and the lamb and other animals which peacefully share the idyllic landscape. Several tailed monkeys are seen up in the trees and a strange tall ape, whose erect posture suggests that the painter had never encountered one of its kind alive, stands in the background. The main interest is centered on Adam and Eve. Skillfully, the first human male and female are depicted much as in other, greater compositions. One contrast, however, is unique in this panel. Adam is a white man, Eve a black woman. It seems that the pious unknown artist of the century of Rationalism—or was it his patron?—had contemplated upon the existence of different races of mankind. Must not their origins go back to the stem parents? Thus, the painter placed into Paradise a member each of the most strikingly different human varieties to be the progenitors of the still existing diversity. A white Adam and black Eve seem to be unknown in other art. True, in representations of the continents a white and a black, a yellow and a red figure has often been used. But this painting of Paradise is not a symbol of the two continents nor are the same artist's works on the adjoining panels related to geography. They show the sources of materials used for the production of drugs: a pharmacist's garden, a seascape with whales and fishes, and a mine as the furnisher of minerals and chemicals.
quote:Abstract: A painting from 1770 depicting a black Eve and white Adam in a paradisiacal landscape helps to reconstruct the scientific discourse on heredity, variation, skin colour and racial difference, as it was known at the very place the painting was made: the ‘Old Pharmacy’ in Calw, Württemberg. Calw’s internationally connected community of pharmacists, physicians, and botanists were well informed about the latest scientific activities and expeditions to understand human varieties and its causes, especially skin colour and the boundaries between humans and animals. Here, in the 1760s, Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter (1733 - 1806), conducted hybridisation experiments with plants and contributed to the formation of a new understanding of pangenetic heredity, which, most prominently, was proposed by Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698 - 1759). The time of the painting’s creation saw the discussion of Linnaean classification, it was made shortly before Immanuel Kant (1727 - 1804) introduced the French term “race” into the German scientific discourse. At times of a fundamental transition in the understanding of human diversity, the painting documents the possibility, based on the siences of the time, to appreciate this diversity and to assume a common origin without creating a new hierarchy based on skin colour and racial difference
quote:The painting with the black and white human couple became known beyond the area of Calw through its reproduction in the Journal of Heredity and Scientific American in 1953 and 1954 respectively, by the geneticist Curt Stern (1902-1981) . Stern, a German-Jewish émigré and geneticist worked on skin colour himself. At a time shortly after the holocaust and before the take o" of the civil rights movement in the USA he used the artwork as a positive heritage from both Judaeo-Christian tradition and European Enlightenment to substantiate the possibility of interpreting skin colour difference in a non-racist manner and to reject marriage bans based on racial identity
painting at the Old Pharmacy, Calw, Southern Germany ____________________________________a little hard to distinguish the gender, ^^^ people have described Adam as the seated figure. Wondering if he(?) is possibly turned away from view to hide his genitalia. I wonder if they are 100% convinced this depicts Adam and Eve. If I were to guess I might say 90%
there is also a figure standing on the left looking somewhat human (or ape?)
