Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing

by Laura J. Snyder

  272 On the twenty-ninth: See ibid., pp. 339–44.

  273 But possibly these: Ibid., pp. 220–22.

  273 “She, supplicant, charged”: Ibid., pp. 344–45.

  274 It was not uncommon: See C. Ford, “Introduction,” pp. 21–24.

  274 Three years after: See Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, p. 100.

  274 At the end of the: See Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, p. 334.

  275 Leeuwenhoek requested: See Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, pp. 226–27.

  275 Leeuwenhoek reported that: See AvL to Oldenburg, May 14, 1677, AB, 2:229–31.

  275 In November, Leeuwenhoek: See Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, p. 219.

  276 In February 1677: Ibid., p. 228 and appendix B, pp. 348–49. See also Wheelock, Perspective, Optics, and Delft Artists around 1650, p. 266.

  276 On March 15: Swillens, Johannes Vermeer, p. 191, appendixes 17 and 18, and Wheelock, Perspective, Optics, and Delft Artists around 1650, p. 266.

  276 Decades later, after: See Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, p. 151.

  277 Probably, it was: See ibid., p. 217.

  277 Ham had seen: See Hall, “The Leeuwenhoek Lecture,” p. 259.

  278 “What I investigate”: AvL to Lord Brouncker, Nov. 1677, AB, 2:281–93.

  278 While history does not: See AvL to RSL, July 11, 1687, AB, 6:319.

  278 “they moved forward”: AvL to Lord Brouncker, Nov. 1677, AB, 2:281–93.

  278 He realized that: See AB, 3:8–19, 202–9, 324–25.

  278 He would observe sperm: See, e.g., AvL to Grew, April 25, 1679, AB, 3:3–9, AvL to Hooke, Jan. 12, 1680, AB, 3:145, and AvL to Hooke, Nov. 12, 1680, AB, 3:315–31.

  279 Leeuwenhoek examined: See AvL to Hans Sloane, June 14, 1700, AB, 13:111.

  279 He had found: See AvL to RSL, May 14, 1686, AB, 6:63–65, and Aug. 6, 1687, AB, 7:7–15.

  279 “I am quite convinced”: AvL to RSL, Oct. 17, 1687, AB, 7:113, and AvL to RSL, April 30, 1694, AB, 10:93.

  279 “old wives’ tales of foolish”: AvL to Antonio Magliabecchi, 1695, AB, 11:47.

  279 “It is exclusively”: AvL to Grew, March 18, 1678, in AB, 2:331.

  279 He believed that the sperm: See Lindeboom, “Leeuwenhoek and the Problem of Sexual Reproduction,” pp. 147–49.

  279 “Man comes not from”: AvL to Wren, Jan. 22, 1683, AB, 4:11. This translation is taken from Cobb, Generation, p. 208; it differs slightly from the translation in AB.

  280 The article was accompanied: It has been suggested that the article was intended as a satire, but that Leeuwenhoek did not realize this. See Lindeboom, “Leeuwenhoek and the Problem of Sexual Reproduction,” p. 149.

  280 Leeuwenhoek himself believed: AvL to RSL, June 9, 1699, AB, 12:293–305.

  280 “Although I have sometimes”: AvL to RSL, July 13, 1685, AB, 5:237. In the same letter, Leeuwenhoek allowed himself to hope that at some point “we have the good fortune to come across an animal whose male seeds will be so large that we can recognize in it the figure of the creature from which it has come.” That may be why he asked a whaling ship’s captain to obtain for him the penis of a whale.

  280 He did this in his: AvL to RSL, March 30, 1685, AB, 5:157–59.

  281 Looking at the uterus: AvL to the RSL, Jan. 23, 1685, AB, 5:137.

  281 He continued to claim: AvL to Wren, Jan. 22, 1683, AB, 4:11, and AvL to RSL, March 30, 1685, AB, 5:139.

  281 “the great secret of generation”: AvL to Francis Aston, Sept. 17, 1683, AB, 4:123.

  281 Leeuwenhoek had claimed: AvL to Grew, April 25, 1679, AB, 3:25–35.

  281 “wrote about the great”: Ibid., p. 23.

  281 “we can only guess”: AvL to RSL, July 10, 1696, AB, 11:321.

  282 She was buried: See Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, p. 237.

  282 Vermeer was not alone: Liedtke, “De Hooch and Vermeer,” p. 168.

  283 In the satin we have: Liedtke, Vermeer, p. 172. The same can be said for the blue satin overskirt of Young Woman Seated at a Virginal.

  283 “the purity of his masterpieces”: Wheelock, Perspective, Optics, and Delft Artists around 1650, p. 262.

  283 “un vin pétillant éventé: Michael Taylor, Les mensonges de Vermeer, quoted in Bell, “The Mysterious Women of Vermeer,” p. 86.

  284 In each of the two: See also Liedtke, Vermeer, pp. 170–71.

  284 It has been said: See Mayor, “The Photographic Eye,” p. 20.

  285 Closer to Vermeer: See Kemp, The Science of Art, p. 213.

  286 Perhaps this is why: In 1813 The Art of Painting was sold to Count Johann Rudolf Czerni by a “saddler,” as a picture by Pieter de Hoogh, for thirty guilders. See Swillens, Johannes Vermeer, p. 61.

  286 “the only master who”: Goncourt and Goncourt, Journal, 1:727.

  PART 11: SCIENTIFIC LION

  287 “I then again and again”: All quotations pertaining to his teeth-cleaning habits in the first two paragraphs are taken from the letter from AvL to Francis Aston, Sept. 17, 1683, AB, 4:127–29.

  288 “there are living more animals”: AvL to RSL, Sept. 16, 1692, AB, 9:135–37.

  288 The society sent Leeuwenhoek: See Dobell, Antony van Leeuwenhoek and His “Little Animals,” pp. 46–50.

  288 “so great but unmerited”: AvL to RSL, May 13, 1680, AB, 3:221.

  288 The great honor even: The “van” first appears in a letter to the Royal Society of Jan. 5, 1685, AB, vol. 5: 1-67.

  288 A bemused Constantijn Huygens: See Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, p. 160.

  288 As Leibniz would later: Leibniz to Constantijn Huygens, quoted ibid., p. 67. On Leibniz’s trip to Amsterdam and Delft, see Nadler, The Best of All Possible Worlds, p. 218.

  289 Van Leeuwenhoek pointed: AvL to RSL, Jan. 5, 1685, AB, 5:64.

  289 “The Snow so chilled him”: Aubrey, Brief Lives, p. 16.

  290 “I observed an incredible”: AvL to RSL, Sept. 16, 1692, AB, 9:133.

  290 “being unable to bear”: Ibid., p. 135.

  290 He found that adding: Ibid., p. 133.

  290 ravaging the teeth: See Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, pp. 165–66.

  291 “would have no freedom”: AvL to RSL, Jan. 14, 1710, AvL letters, RSL folio 125r, quoted in Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, p. 150.

  291 Even so, in the space: AvL to J. Petiver, Aug. 18, 1711, AvL letters, RSL fol. 140r, quoted ibid.

  291 “Tout le monde court encore”: Letter from Constantijn Huygens Jr. to Christiaan Huygens, Aug. 13, 1680, quoted in Schierbeek, Measuring the Invisible World, p. 35.

  291 “His Highness admitted”: AvL to Hooke, Oct. 13, 1679, AB, 3:107–9.

  291 Years later, he would: AvL to RSL, Aug. 6, 1687, AB, 7:41.

  292 She had arrived: AvL to Mary, Queen of Britain, Dedication to the Derde Vervolg der Brieven (1693). Reproduced in AB, 9:173.

  292 “such information of our”: Osselton, The Dumb Linguists, pp. 10–11.

  292 “shook Leeuwenhoek by”: Gerard van Loon in 1731, quoted in Dobell, Antony van Leeuwenhoek and His “Little Animals,” p. 55.

  292 On a later visit: Israel, The Dutch Republic, pp. 1044–45. Description of the “little children” quoted in Rupp, “Matters of Life and Death,” p. 278.

  293 He began inviting: See AvL to RSL, Sept. 7, 1688, AB, 8:7–57, and Fournier, “The Fabric of Life,” p. 37.

  293 He was moved: See AvL to Boyle, Jan. 12, 1689, AB, 7:83–93.

  293 “might suffer less”: See Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, p. 155, and AB, 7:276–77, 8:23–25, 34–37, 48–49, 54–57, 80–81.

  293 He thought it was made: See Cole, “Leeuwenhoek’s Zoological Researches, Part I,” p. 44.

  294 He was constructing: See Fournier, “The Fabric of Life,” p. 117.

  294 He explained that he: “But I will not deny that there may be living creatures in the air, which are so small as to escape our sight; I only say that I have not seen them.” AvL to Oldenburg, Oct. 9, 1676, AB, 2:157.<
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  295 This drop of water acted: See Cohen, “On Leeuwenhoek’s Method of Seeing Bacteria,” p. 343.

  295 Van Leeuwenhoek would later describe: See Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, p. 256n139.

  295 “extreme clearness and”: Molyneux to RSL, Feb. 13, 1685, MS RSL, no. 2445, reproduced in Dobell, Antony van Leeuwenhoek and His “Little Animals,” pp. 57–58.

  296 It is generally believed: See Stafford et al., Devices of Wonder, p. 215.

  296 “like looking at”: Jean-Antoine Nollet, quoted ibid., pp. 215–16.

  297 “he told me he has”: Molyneux to RSL, Feb. 13, 1685, MS RSL, no. 2445, reproduced in Dobell, Antony van Leeuwenhoek and His “Little Animals,” pp. 57–58.

  297 “resolved not to let”: AvL to Oldenburg, March 26, 1675, AB, 1:293–95.

  297 “the Painter could not”: See AvL to Anthonie Heinsius, Sept. 20, 1698, AB, 12:242.

  298 Tomas van der Wilt: See Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft, p. 171.

  298 “Nearly all the plates”: See Boitet, Beschryving der stadt Delf, pp. 790–91, cited in Dobell, Antony van Leeuwenhoek and His “Little Animals,” pp. 343–44. Dobell suggests that Leeuwenhoek’s first draftsman was Willem’s father, Tomas van der Wilt.

  298 In several of his letters: AvL to Francis Aston, Dec. 28, 1683, AB, 4:177–81, and AvL to RSL, Oct. 17, 1687, AB, 7:99.

  299 Tiny, solid objects: See Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, p. 150.

  299 With his shaving razor: See ibid., pp. 152–53.

  300 After reviewing the specimens: See Huerta, Giants of Delft, pp. 31–32.

  300 He could then employ: See AvL to Hooke, Nov. 12, 1680, AB, 3:311.

  300 Once the proper hair: See B. J. Ford, Single Lens, p. 41n.

  300 He speaks of spending: See Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, p. 156.

  301 “gave me so much”: AvL to Hans Sloane, Jan. 2, 1700, AB, 13:17.

  301 “This sight gives me”: AvL to RSL, July 10, 1696, AB, 11:311.

  301 “Nor should I ever”: AvL to RSL, June 27, 1721, published in Philosophical Transactions 31 (1720–21): 203.

  301 “this multiple sight”: AvL to RSL, April 15, 1701, AB, 13:297.

  302 “excite convulsive motions”: Leewenhoek to RSL, May 31, 1723, quoted in Dobell, Antony van Leeuwenhoek and His “Little Animals,” p. 91.

  302 The rare disorder: See Rankin, “Van Leeuwenhoek’s Disease,” p. 1434.

  302 “lips stammering and well-nigh”: As reported by Boitet, Beschryving der stadt Delf, p. 768, and Hoogvliet to RSL, Sept, 4, 1723, both quoted in Dobell, Antony van Leeuwenhoek and His “Little Animals,” pp. 92–93.

  302 “with 16 pall-bearers”: As recorded in the church register and quoted ibid., p. 99.

  302 His burial notice: DTB Delft 14, inv. 48, folio 8v.

  302 Attached to each microscope: Leeuwenhoek had prepared the cabinet by Aug. 2, 1701, when he described it in a letter to the Royal Society, cited ibid. p. 96.

  303 Already in 1662, Hooke: See Wilson, The Invisible World, p. 67.

  303 Later, in 1743, the English: In his Microscope Made Easy, cited ibid., p. 227.

  303 It was, rather, that: Most standard histories of the microscope claim that in the eighteenth century there was a decline in microscopy, with few studies employing the tool until the nineteenth century. See, e.g., Wilson, The Invisible World, Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, and Fournier, “The Fabric of Life.” However, more recent work convincingly refutes that position. See Schickore, The Microscope and the Eye, and Ratcliff, The Quest for the Invisible.

  303 Microscopes could be deployed: Ratcliff, in The Quest for the Invisible, traces this to the development of a “shared quest” for microscopical studies. Rather than concentrating on invisible animalcules that could not be seen by everyone with a microscope, natural philosophers began to reshape microscopical investigation to favor the examination of tiny, but visible, organic things, which were easier to observe. The project changed from “See for yourself” to “Let’s see together.”

  304 “Now will you call”: Quoted in Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, p. 26.

  304 “We cut them with”: Quoted ibid., pp. 272–73.

  304 “these are truths”: Quoted ibid., p. 273.

  304 The existence of such: As Ruestow notes, some natural philosophers doubted that the microscopic objects seen by Leeuwenhoek and others were, in fact, living beings. See ibid., pp. 260–61.

  304 Van Leeuwenhoek had a kind: See ibid., p. 263n19.

  304 Even when he found: See AvL to Hooke, Nov. 4, 1681, AB, 3:367–71.

  304 The eighteenth-century Swedish botanist: Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, p. 263.

  305 he published his work: Pacini, Osservazioni microscopiche e deduzioni patologiche sul cholera asiatico.

  305 Huygens’s friend Margaret Cavendish: Cavendish, “A World in an Eare-Ring,” from Poems and Fancies (1653).

  305 “to see a World in”: Blake, “Auguries of Innocence” (1803, pub. 1863).

  305 “Every part of matter”: The Works of Joseph Addison, 4:40.

  305 “Where the pool”: James Thomson, The Seasons (1730).

  PART 12: NEW WAYS OF SEEING

  309 Van Leeuwenhoek had devised: Leeuwenhoek’s method is called “concentric” by Berkel, “Intellectuals against Leeuwenhoek,” p. 200, and Huerta, Giants of Delft, passim.

  309 He boasted that he: AvL to RSL, July 25, 1684, AB, 4:281.

  310 “I generally notice”: AvL to RSL, July 25, 1707, quoted in Berkel, “Intellectuals against Leeuwenhoek,” p. 200.

  310 Vermeer’s way of returning: Descargues makes a similar point in Vermeer, p. 105.

  311 The same is true: See Costaras, “A Study of the Materials and Techniques of Johannes Vermeer,” p. 161.

  312 Francis Bacon had instructed: Bacon wrote “naturae constrictae et vexatae.” Instauratio Magna, in The Works of Francis Bacon, 1: 141; English translation as “nature under constraint and vexed” in “Plan of the Work,” in The Works of Francis Bacon, 4:29. The historian of science Carolyn Merchant went too far when she claimed that Bacon said the natural philosopher must “torture” or even “rape” Nature. On this claim and the subsequent debate around it, see Pesic, “Wrestling with Proteus.”

  312 “when we endeavour”: Hooke, Micrographia, p. 186 Hooke himself had generally refrained from cutting into specimens during his microscopical investigations, the only exceptions in Micrographia being the cross-sectioning of the cork and dissection of the eye of the drone fly.

  313 “took the testicle”: AvL to Hooke, April 5, 1680, AB, 3:203.

  313 “eleven weeks and one day”: See AvL to Royal Society, Dec. 20, 1693, AB, 9:317.

  313 “quite distinctly saw”: AvL to RSL, March 30, 1685, AB, 5:183.

  313 Van Leeuwenhoek dissected: AvL to RSL, Aug. 12, 1692, AB, 9:81.

  314 “as savoury as ever”: AvL to Frederik Adriaan van Reede van Renswoude, July 16, 1696, AB, 12:3–5.

  314 “those who investigate”: AvL to Nicolas Witsen, March 8, 1696, AB, 11:239.

  315 “new Worlds and”: Hooke, Micrographia, preface, n.p.

  315 But through the lens: See Gowing, Vermeer, pp. 22–23.

  316 These women have: See Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, p. 413.

  316 “who among the ancient”: See Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, p. 37.

  317 “they seemed to me”: Quoted in Wilson, The Invisible World, p. 237.

  317 He would soon see: At first, just like Hooke and Swammerdam, Leeuwenhoek saw the microscopic fibers of striated muscle as a “string of globules.” By 1682, though, he reported seeing striations or a series of rings around the fibers and proposed that they were wrinkles related to the function of the fibers. Later, in 1714, he saw that the striations were not a series of circular folds but rather a spiral wound about the fiber. See Ruestow, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic, pp. 185–86. On tooth
enamel, see AvL to RSL, May 31, 1678, AB, 2:366–69. See also Fournier, “The Fabric of Life,” pp. 127–29, and Snelders, “Antoni van Leeuwenhoek’s Mechanistic View of the World,” p. 66.

  317 Van Leeuwenhoek had learned: This realization came earlier than Daston and Lunbeck suggest when they write that “starting in the 1820s prominent scientific writers” feared that “overly engaged scientists might contaminate observation with their preferred theories.” See Daston and Lunbeck, “Observation Observed,” pp. 3–4.

  317 “simple Eye” … “attentive observation”: See AvL to RSL, June 13, 1687, AB, 6:309.

  317 Van Leeuwenhoek emphasized: See AB, 1:110–11, 3:208–9, 430–31.

  318 there is no line at all: See Steadman, Vermeer's Camera, p. 58. See also Blankert, Vermeer of Delft, p. 46, and Gowing, Vermeer, p.56

  318 He relied on the visual: See Wheelock, Vermeer and the Art of Painting, p. 12.

  319 The Hubble Telescope has: See “Hubble explores the origins of modern galaxies: Astronomers see true shapes of galaxies 11 billion years back in time,” Aug. 15, 2013, at http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1315/, accessed April 29, 2014. See also Kemp, Seen/Unseen, p. 241.

  320 As earlier writers had: See Livingstone, Vision and Art, pp. 6–8.

  320 Using functional magnetic: Similar changes in the brain have been found in subjects instructed to think about seeing something. See, e.g., Le Bihan et al., “Activation of Human Primary Visual Cortex during Visual Recall.”

  321 At the same time, some: See Sacks, The Mind’s Eye, pp. 111–43.

  321 And like Cheselden’s: Those stories do not always end well. See, e.g., Sacks “To See or Not to See,” in An Anthropologist on Mars.

  EPILOGUE: DARE TO SEE!

  323 On the frontispiece: Epistolae ad Societatem Regiam Anglicam (Letters to the Royal Society), published in Leiden in 1719.

  323 As the motto for: See Ginzburg, “The High and the Low,” p. 68.

  323 Sapere aude: The phrase is from Horace’s epistle to Lollius. Horace addresses these words to a “fool” who is waiting for the water to dry up before daring to cross a stream. The passage originally referred to common sense—don’t be silly, the water is not going to dry up, just cross it! But by the early seventeenth century, Sapere aude was becoming a catchphrase for daring to seek knowledge. See Ginzburg, “The High and the Low,” p. 66.