There are many known portraits of Charles Darwin.
Darwin came from a wealthy family and became a well-known naturalist and author, and
portrait
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this r ...
s were made of him in childhood, adulthood and old age. Darwin's life (1809–1882) spanned the
development of photography, and early portraits of Darwin are drawn or painted, while many later portraits are monochrome photographs. After the publication and dissemination of the controversial ''
On the Origin of Species
''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...
'' in 1859, Darwin was also the subject of
numerous caricatures.
Darwin's visage, particularly his iconic beard, continues to be culturally significant and widely recognisable into the 21st century. According to historian Janet Browne, Darwin's capacity to commission photographs of himself—and their widespread reproduction as
carte de visite and
cabinet card
The cabinet card was a style of photograph which was widely used for photographic portraiture after 1870. It consisted of a thin photograph mounted on a card typically measuring 108 by 165 mm ( by inches).
History
The ''carte de visite'' ...
photographs—helped to cement the lasting connection between Darwin and the theory of evolution in popular thought (largely to the exclusion of the many others who also contributed to the development of evolutionary theory), especially as these portraits were reinterpreted in caricature. At that time few could afford to commission portrait photographs, and this gave Darwin an advantage in gaining public recognition.
Especially in his last decades as
his illness progressed, Darwin expressed frustration about sitting for photographs. He turned down an opportunity in 1869 to sit for a portrait with
Alfred Russel Wallace, explaining that sitting for photographs "is what I hate doing & wastes a whole day owing to my weak health; and to sit with another person would cause still more trouble & delay." Nevertheless, there are at least 53 known photographs of Darwin, according to
Gene Kritsky, a scholar of Darwin photos.
[ Richard Milner,]
Charles Darwin: The Last Portrait
", ''Scientific American'', November 1995, pp. 78–79.
__TOC__
Chronological list of portraits
References
External links
Charles Robert Darwin– National Portrait Gallery, London
Photographs– The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online
– Catalog of reproductions and derivatives of Darwin's image
Darwin portraits– University of Oklahoma Libraries, History of Science Collections
– Wellcome Images
*"
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The Onion
''The Onion'' is an American digital media company and newspaper organization that publishes satire, satirical articles on international, national, and local news. The company is based in Chicago but originated as a weekly print publication on ...
'', 5 September 2008.
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