The Descent of Humankind examines artistic responses to the theory of human evolution from an ape-like ancestor, with which Darwin was so closely identified in the public mind. The anxieties provoked by these ideas are played out in the dark, sometimes fantastic, views of human prehistory by artists as diverse as G. F. Watts and Odilon Redon. The concept of human cultural development from an animal state was inseparable from racial theory in an age of imperialism. Increasingly, the public became fascinated with the ‘Other’. Photography played a crucial role in disseminating imagery of ‘savage’ and tribal peoples, their cultures and customs. This section includes an astonishing range of photographs of racial “types” – some from Darwin’s own collection. They demonstrate the constant flow of images and ideas between the world of anthropologists and that of commercial entertainment.
Odilon Redon, Les Origines, plate 3, 'The misshapen polyp floated on the shores, a sort of smiling and hideous Cyclops' (detail), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Thomas Bock, Jenny Wife of Timmy Native at Port Sorell, ca. 1837-43 (detail), Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford