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Blue Root print Wanderings of a Comet print Collections / Images The Nature of the Beast: Charles le Brun's Human-Animal Hybrids (1806) Illustration of a man-boar hybrid Rapport de la figure humaine avec celle du cochon (The relationship between the human figure and that of the pig), from Dissertation sur un traite de Charles Le Brun, concernant le rapport de la physionomie humaine avec celle des animaux (Dissertation on a treatise by Charles Le Brun concerning the relationship between human physiognomy and that of animals, 1806) There is something inherently dependable about the ox-faced man sketched by Charles le Brun (1619-90): he is a hard worker, probably a laborer. The man with the fox face, however, is definitely a thief. Zoomorphic stereotypes, which in a glance provide an impression of character and class, might have been a boon for le Brun, who had been charged in 1669 with decorating Louis XIV's new palace at Versailles. This massive undertaking included a series of grand allegorical paintings, full of figures from myth, history, and the Bible. In such crowded scenes, how best to distinguish between emperor and slave, despot and demi-mondaine? His answers to that question would also prove important to the many members of Paris' flourishing seventeenth-century artistic scene. In addition to his own work, le Brun, the precocious scion of an artistic family, was an institutional man. He was jointly responsible for founding both the Gobelins Manufactory (responsible for making all the furnishings in the royal palaces) and the Academie royale de painture et de sculpture. On March 28, 1671, he gave the Academie's students a lecture on human-animal physiognomy, the text of which was then lost. The Dissertation featured here, published only in 1806 under the aegis of the Musee Napoleon (as the Musee du Louvre was called between 1803 and 1816), attempts to reconstitute this lecture via le Brun's protege and amanuensis, Claude Nivelon (1648-1720). The book brings together thirty-seven etchings and engravings made from le Brun's drawings, introduced with a "dissertation" by Louis-Marie-Joseph Morel d'Arleux, curator of the Musee Napoleon's prints and drawings, based on Nivelon's unpublished biography of his master. This craving for le Brun's guidance likely had much to do with the persistent influence of his Methode pour apprendre a dessiner les passions (A Method to Learn to Design the Passions), posthumously published in 1698. According to Cecilia Sjoholm, le Brun's Methode was in part an attempt to illustrate -- and aestheticize -- the principles of human emotion that had been sketched out by Rene Descartes a few decades earlier in The Passions of the Soul (1649). Descartes insisted that emotion, even if internally generated, has an external effect -- body and mind work together to feel. That meant that artists had to learn to show Mary's anguish and Alexander's self-satisfaction. No more impassive medieval faces, looking serenely out at the viewer. The Methode helpfully systematized Descartes' thought, demonstrating the correct angle that each feature had to take to embody each emotion. The Dissertation is a supplement to this earlier work, examining markers of character less transient than emotions. Nevertheless, it is not, Morel d'Arleux insists, a lesson on morality. The task is simply, he assures us, "the advancement of Art" -- not the commonplace mistake of thinking, as some "credulous beings" do, that they can distinguish "moral imperfections" in people with "physical imperfections". Still, he admits, it is true that prominent men have prominent noses -- everyone since Aristotle has agreed about that. An aquiline nose, we learn, is a necessary component of a hero's face, accompanied by a wide and raised forehead, thick eyebrows, and eyes angled such that "the interior corners make an angle above the horizontal line which then cuts only through the outer corner". Variation from this theme is a sure sign that Minerva, the patron goddess of geniuses, has never come to visit. The beakish nose is only good for the eagle-like, who is resolute in his toga: le Brun's raven-man, frowning toward the viewer and cawing in three-quarter profile, is prone to even the "most condemnable" passions (perhaps this is because, as Aristotle argued, the nose is under the rule of Venus). The parrot-man, in his soft cloth cap, may recall a Renaissance philosopher -- but a parrot's beak, of course, is a sure sign of the babillard outre, an extreme babbler. Text by Mathilde Montpetit Enjoyed this piece? We need your help to keep publishing. 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Support PDR Medium * Images Theme * Animals & Beasts * Science & Medicine * Emotion & Expression Style * Book Illustration * Etching * Engraving Epoch * 19th Century Tags animals37physiognomy10faces5art17drawing7metamorphosis2character5 emotions7 Source Source University of Strasbourg * University of Strasbourg logo More University of Strasbourg content on PDR (2) Rights Underlying PD Worldwide Work Rights Non-commercial Digital Copy * Source labels this as "public domain" but Rights restricts to non-commercial use * See their general rights page * We offer this info as guidance only Download Download Right click on image or see source for higher-res version Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Engraving of a human-animal hybrid figureScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Published Oct 15, 2025 If You Liked This... Hand holding envelope Get Our Newsletter Our latest content, your inbox, every fortnight Privacy Policy More Info [ ][ ] HP[ ] [Subscribe] Become a Friend of the PDRPostcardsWe rely on our annual donors to keep the project alive. 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