You know that dodgy part of town , the run - down expanse where creative person compete side - by - side with panhandler for handouts ? Say you ’re walk around there , and you enrol an odd footling shop . You ’re greet by a bust of a definitive Whitley Strieberaliensporting anElvispompadour and bloodiedvampirefangs . If you suppose , " I ’m base , " then you would ’ve had a okay time live on in Europe during the seventeenth and 18th centuries .
It was during these one C that a movement break of collecting odd , unnerving , surprising and alien point and stuffing them into cramped areas with no rime or reason to their placement . These collection , calledwunderkammern(or " marvel chamber " ) – make out in the West ascabinets of curiosity– often were presented in locker . In other instances , these cabinets were actually large rooms , filled from floor to roof with alien ( and sometimes repulsive ) detail . The concept of displaying unique and strange items in rooms may vocalise a minute conversant ; wunderkammern were the verbatim predecessors of the modernistic museum .
In fact , several famous museums in Europe can decipher their heritage directly back to wunderkammern . In 1675 , the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University afford , receiving its first assemblage from the immense wunderkammer ( singular ) of John Tradescant . And the first museum in Russia ’s history , theKunstkamera , open to the public in 1719 . Russian Czar Peter the Great decree its construction . The Kunstkamera was based around the outre items found within Peter the Great ’s famous cabinet of oddment .
Peter , who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1725 , was cognise for his thirst for cognition as much as his neglect for human animation . He was a lover of scientific discipline who used his peasantry as targets for live ammo military recitation . But Peter was a dilettante in respect to the men of find out who compiled the collections that he purchased and coveted .
Wunderkammern
During the Dark and Medieval Ages , the Catholic Church countered scientific inquiry with awful decease . With the sunrise of the Age of Exploration , rational thought start to emerge from the vestige . The populace open up along overseas trade itinerary , and merchandiser return to Europe from unknown and eldritch lands with impressive relics . These were treasure by former scientist , who compile the item , constitute the first wunderkammern .
Looking in on these wunderkammern was stylish among Europe ’s wealthy classes . But to those who amassed the point , wunderkammern were far more than pass on fantasy . Each item in these collections submit an chance to explore and catalog one more composition of the man .
Some artifacts were more dubious than others . One may have find amummy ’s hand situated next to a reputed mermaid ’s hand . And their arrangement within the locker or way followed no aesthetic radiation diagram . rather , the items were tucked away wherever each fit . As a result , macabre juxtapositions often emerged , like a absolutely symmetrical dry out starfish Scripture - ended by a syphilis - ravage skull and afetish(an idol symbolize a god ) from some equatorialcult .
Other solicitation were of a medical nature ; anatomical oddities like conjoinedtwinswere extremely esteem , as were abnormalities like human skull with horn . Some collections were thematic , with many case of a exchangeable artifact that were used as basis for equivalence . Peter the Great ’s console of curiosity feature scores of teeth he ’d in person pulled – he considered himself a dental practitioner [ source : slating ] .
Wunderkammern were in vogue in Europe and provided Peter with a perfect chance to slake his raw hungriness for noesis while introducing an occidental appeal to his state . Peter was interested in bring Russia out of cultural closing off and into a more Eurocentric society . Agovernmentunder ceaseless terror of intrusion keep on him officious , and he had to purchase others ' collections rather than pile up his own novelty . He had a standing society for his merchants and war machine to play back any item of interest for his wunderkammer .
He seat in two collections that had achieve considerable prominence . One was that of Dutch scientist Frederik Ruysch . His wunderkammer was a spectacle , indeed . It was as much a statement on life and death as it was about the demystification of general anatomy . Ruysch develop techniques for carry on tissue , and he used his methods to create amazing whole caboodle of art . He often featured fetal skeletons in woodland scenes . Closer review bring out the trees and other plant – the " woodland landscape " – to be intricate constructions of vena and artery . The handkerchiefs into which some skeletons wept over the folly of life were flayedbraintissue [ informant : Gould ] .
Peter also purchased the collection of another Dutchman , Albertus Seba . He sold the contents of his wunderkammer to Peter in 1717 for 15,000 florin [ beginning : Towbridge Gallery ] . Seba ’s donation to Peter ’s collection consisted largely of exotic creature specimens , for which the Dutchman trade medicine to sailors . Preserved items likesquid , poisonous toad frog andbutterflieswere shipped from Amsterdam to St. Petersburg .
Although these exhibits sound pathologic and unusual , there was a function behind them . To Peter , the discipline of abnormal specimen meant dispelling popular myth about the liaison of the devil in the development of what the peasantry considered to be " demon " [ source : Kunstkamera ] . As a result , a major part of Peter ’s assembling consist of pickled foetus and sections of the human body . This part of the wunderkammer extend to the animal kingdom , as well . It included a two - direct sheep and a four - legged cock [ beginning : British Library ] .
The contributions to human agreement that Peter ’s and others ' collections of curio generated is incalculable . But wunderkammern also leave behind other touch over the 100 . Find out about the bequest of wunderkammern on the next page .
The Legacy of the Wunderkammern
Our sentience of the biodiversity among botany and fauna on Earth allows us to read the importance of sustaining aliveness at all grade . And while you may not bang the elaborateness of human anatomy , in a pinch , you’re able to belike find someone who does . We may take noesis of these things for granted – we can action our curiosity by simply open a Christian Bible or research on the Internet . But this vast availability of entropy come to us from the spirit of inquiry further by the wunderkammern .
When the Kunstkamera , Ashmolean and other museum opened to the public , they provided a model for future museums . They provided depositories of noesis from which scholars around the world could draw . Ordinary citizens could espouse Frederik Ruysch ’s motto of " Come , see and judge , believe only your own heart " ( " Vene , vidi et judicia nil tuis oculis " ) [ origin : Kunstkamera ] . These other museum also represented a departure from the hallmark of cabinets of curiosity : odd juxtaposition . Museums ' cognitive content were put into linguistic context . The collections became divided along thematic lines . Relics from old and upstage cultures were put up in anthropological and ethnographic museum . Specimens of exotic flora and beast and anatomical item were classify in natural story and medical museums . The display of collection without rhyme or understanding became relegated to the maudlin , camp , and exploitative .
But cabinets of curio never stray too far from human awareness . It ’s perhaps our natural attracter to repulsion that has continue our interest in wunderkammern and their descendant to this sidereal day . One could debate that the Weekly World News may never have relish its 28 - year photographic print beingness without the wunderkammern . In addition to scientific inquiry , there ’s a certain amount of ghoulish oddity to any wunderkammer . After all , who can gaze upon a uphold baby arm floating in a jar and not be at the same time repulsed and intrigued ?
If the descriptions of wunderkammern remind you a fleck of today ’s carnival freak show , fear not . There ’s a o.k. differentiation between side shows and wunderkammern : One work the eccentric for profit , while the other exhibits the bizarre for scientific advancement . They seem to have evolved side - by - side , as well . In fact , one of the specimens in Peter ’s solicitation really made the jump from circus to wunderkammern . Peter rule a French giant named Bourgeois ( whose female parent , ironically , was a nanus ) at a carnival in 1717 . The tzar devote the monster to be his handmaid until 1724 , when Bourgeois died and his body was after put on display in the Kunstkamera , alongside his carry on , outsize substance [ source : Anemone ] .
A interchangeable aggregation to the former Kunstkamera items can be found in the United States . TheMutter Museumin Philadelphia house strange medical specimen , like preserved interbreeding department of a human face and the skeleton of a human being who suffer fromfibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva– a genetic disorder that make bone to grow in place of muscular tissue .
The feel of wunderkammern is alive and well in other quarters of American curation . In 2002 , the New York Public Library held a " Cabinet of Curiosities " showing . The collection boast a copy of Ray Bradbury ’s " Fahrenheit 451 " bind in anasbestoscover , eyeglasses belong to Jesse James ' mother , a pencil made by Henry David Thoreau and a copy of the " Gay Monopoly " board secret plan [ seed : NYPL ] .
And there are still plenty of curio shops that resemble and owe their origin to wunderkammern . Like that unmated little store you walked into at the beginning of the article . Go out front , have a look around .
