Mirror of the Whole of Nature

A hand emerges from a radiant cloud, holding a chain that descends to a nude female figure, Natura, standing atop a great wheel of concentric spheres. A second chain runs from her wrist down to an ape crouched on the earth, holding a compass. This is Fludd’s diagram of hierarchy: God originates, Nature (the world’s intermediary soul) governs the visible creation, and human Art only imitates what Nature already imitates from God, one step further removed from the source. Watch for the ape gripping the compass, a period visual pun on the old tag "ars simia naturae," art as nature’s ape, incapable of true invention. It is the single most reproduced image from Fludd’s cosmology, later borrowed loosely by others as shorthand for the "great chain of being," though Fludd’s own point was narrower and more specific.

Maker

Robert Fludd

Date

Early 17th century

Medium of the original

Plate

Original held by

Wellcome Collection, London

Credit

Wellcome Collection, London · via Wikimedia Commons

Rights

Public domain, verified

Catalogue number

PA-00524