Beached Whale Images in Sixteenth-Century Antwerp: Symbols of Humanity's Dominion over the EarthEnglish | 2026 | ISBN: 904856624X | 198 pages | True PDF,EPUB | 79.41 MB
This book examines a small group of sixteenth-century Antwerp artworks depicting the butchering of beached whales, revealing how these images represent a pivotal moment in European attitudes toward nature. It argues that these "cetaceous units"-iconographic compounds showing humans dominating marine mammals-served as powerful symbols of humanity's relationship with the ocean and the natural world more broadly, marking a transition from medieval moralizing approaches to early modern empirical investigation.