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What if humans were evolved from an owl or a raccoon? A 17th Century French artist’s portraits will give you the answer..

Alex A

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Have you ever wondered what would have happened if humans had evolved from  any other animal than monkeys, let’s say from a bull or lion or my personal favorite would be from a giraffe?! – Well, in Baroque Europe, artists, thinkers, philosophers gave quite a thought of the relation between the human physiognomy and evolution. One of these thinkers was Charles Le Brun, a 17th Century  French painter, declared by the  Louis XIV  himself “the greatest French artist of all time”. Le Brun was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art and art theory.

Le Brun was a fine portraitist and an excellent draughtsman, but he was not fond of portrait or landscape painting, which he felt to be a mere exercise in developing technical prowess. Le Brun was deeply fascinated by the physiognomy and later took an interest in the study of the human physiognomy or more precisely in the relationship and the connection between the person’s character and his facial features. By taking the further exploration of this scientific field, Le Brun  was curious to know how humans would have looked had they evolved from different animals.

So, he did  impressive series of drawings entitled De la physionomie humaine et Animale (or The Human’s and animals  physiognomy). The drawings  give a perfect idea of how some of us would look like if we had evolved from a camel or owl or eagle.

 

1.Owl

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Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the owl. Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

2. Donkey

L0010065 The relation between the human physiognomy and that of the Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org A series of lithographic drawings illustrative of the relation between the human physiognomy and that of the brute creation 1827 A series of lithographic drawings illustrative of the relation between the human physiognomy and that of the brute creation / J. G. Legrand Published: 1827. Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the donkey Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

3. Wild boar

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Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the wild boar Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

4. Fox.

L0010075 The relation between the human physiognomy and that of the Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org A series of lithographic drawings illustrative of the relation between the human physiognomy and that of the brute creation 1827 A series of lithographic drawings illustrative of the relation between the human physiognomy and that of the brute creation / J. G. Legrand Published: 1827. Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the fox. Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

5.Monkey

L0025874 C. Le Brun, Dissertation sur un traite de C. Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org LE BRUN, Charles 1619-1690 C. Le Brun Dissertation sur un traite de C. le Brun, concernant le rapport de la physionomie humaine avec celle des animaux. Paris: Calcographie du Musee Napoleon, 1806. Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the monkey Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

6.Eagle

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Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the eagleSource Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

7.Lion

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Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the lion Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

8.Rabbit

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Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the rabbit Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

9.Camel

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Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the camel Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

 

10.Bull

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Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the bull Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

11. Mountain Goat.

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Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the mountain goat Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

12.Cat

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Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the mountain cat Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

13.Raccoon.

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Lithograph illustrating the relation of the human face to that of the racoon Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

14.Parrot and Lynx.

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Source Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

The bizarre thing about these drawings is the fact they look more realistic that you would have imagined, and I swear that some of these drawings reminded me of some people I know.