Drawing, Etching, and Experiment in Christopher Wren’s Figure of the Brain

Abstract

Christopher Wren’s figure of the brain ‘viewed from below’ in Thomas Willis’s Cerebri anatome (1664) set a precedent, not only for subsequent images of the brain, but for scientific illustration. The image is the visual proof of a Baconian experiment conducted by the Oxford dissection team, in which dye was pumped into the carotid arteries of animal and human specimens in order to imitate the natural flow of blood, thereby applying William Harvey’s theory of circulation to the brain. Usually described as engravings, Wren’s images are in fact etchings (produced by the acid process), significant because etching for book illustration was then in its infancy in England. In addition to considering Wren as an experimental etcher, this article frames our understanding of Wren’s contributions to Willis’s project in terms of his virtuosic talents as amateur draughtsman, natural historian, anatomist, and his use of optical and draughting instruments.

Keywords:

• Christopher Wren
• brain
• blood circulation
• imaging
• etchings
• drawing

Notes

1 The full Latin title is Cerebri anatome: cui accessit nervorum description et usus studio Thomas Willis [i.e. Thomas Willis (et al.), The anatomy of the brain: including the description and function of the nerves].

2 Translated into English by poet Samuel Pordage (1633–c.1691) in Five Treatises (1681). I rely upon Pordage’s edition for this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nathan Flis

Nathan Flis is a doctoral candidate in the History of Art at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford. He is currently completing his doctoral dissertation, From the Life: the art of Francis Barlow (c.1626–1704), which focuses on the life and work of England’s first professional painter, draughtsman, and etcher of birds and animals, who was also one of the most prolific book illustrators and political satirists to work in seventeenth-century London.

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