Reason and Fantasy

[David Morris]

>And if anyone is in Chapel Hill, NC the exhibit "Reason and Fantasy in an 
>Age of Enlightenment" at the Ackland Art Museum is also highly relevant:

This exhibit only runs through April 21.

Also check out some of the related graduate work for this exhibit:

http://www.ackland.org/art/exhibitions/reasonfantasy/graduatestudy.htm

http://www.ackland.org/art/exhibitions/reasonfantasy/lrundquist.htm

Throughout the eighteenth century, scientists, philosophers, and 
academicians strove to solve an epistemological uncertainty that encircled 
abnormal births, singularities in nature, and the rare or miscellaneous that 
fit into a loose concept of monstrous alterity.  The very existence of 
aberrant bodies challenged the notion of nature’s order and man’s ability to 
understand the world through rational classification.  Excessive, defective, 
or composite figures defied categorization and Aristotelian beliefs in pure 
and functional forms.  In contrast, philosopher Denis Diderot’s materialist 
views provided an alternative natural order, one that allowed for 
unpredictability, decomposition, and the blurring of boundaries.  The 
monstrous proved to be a logical contradiction, a paradox ripe with the 
residue of whispered Old World superstition and the authoritative voice of 
burgeoning science.




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