Art History & Criticism / Meno istorija ir kritika 16

ISSN 1822-4555 (Print), ISSN 1822-4547 (Online)

https://doi.org/10.2478/mik-2020-0001

Odeta ŽUKAUSKIENĖ
Lithuanian Culture Research Institute

TRANSHISTORICAL DIALOGUE CONCERNING IMAGES:

5
BALTRUŠAITIS AND KIRCHER

BA LT RU Š A I T I S A N D K I R C H E R
T R A N SH I ST O R IC A L D IA L O G U E
Summary. The article explores the works of Jurgis Baltrušaitis on depraved perspectives. In particular, it examines
his references to Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher in the books dedicated to anamorphoses, aberrations,
Egyptomania and distorting mirror’s reflections. The paper questions what led Baltrušaitis to the dialogue with
the German visionary. The close reading of Baltrušaitis works reveals that in Kircher’s pre-modern thinking the
art historian found those domains of between-the-two, communalities of art and science, art and nature, art and
social imaginary that have become more important in postmodernist period. Kircher’s treatises, previously un-
interpreted in the context of art history, encouraged the development of the broader studies of images focused on
visual phenomena that remained for a long time outside the autonomous field of art history. Without privileging
an aesthetic and evolutionary approach in art history, Baltrušaitis’ works reveal anthropological and ontological
dimensions of images. They disclose that the image is always related to visual experience and imagination, which
takes us beyond the horizon of reality.
Keywords: Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Athanasius Kircher, art history, images, visual studies, anamorphoses, aberrations,
Egyptomania, nature’s art.

INTRODUCTION
Jurgis Baltrušaitis (1903–1988) is a renowned art
historian of Lithuanian origin, whose research has
offered new insights and subjects to a scholarly his-
C O N C E R N I N G
This article offers one of the keys that can help gain
a better understanding of Baltrušaitis’ methodolog-
ical-theoretical perspective, highlighting relevance
of his ideas.

tory of images. After completing a cycle of works
on medieval architecture and fantastic imagery, he
developed original studies of aberrations, show-
ing that a positivist and progress-oriented art his-
tory has an inverted side – a reverse that hides an
un-interpreted world of images and undetermined
visual experiences: hetero-temporal phenomena,
atemporal connections, mysterious survivals, laten-
cies, fallacies, deformations of reality, deviations
from truth, illusions, perversions, esoteric imagery.
However, his works that cover a wide range of topics
are still difficult to define in any epistemic frame-
work. André Chastel reasonably defined his works
on the deviations and “depraved” perspectives1 as a
“metamorphology of Baltrušaitis” parallel to that of
a “metapsychology of Freud.” Still this qualification
2 read the treatises of the German Jesuit by grasping
does not fully describe Baltrušaitis’ efforts to trans-
gress the boundaries of art history and to develop
a broader and a more inclusive history of images.
I M AG E S :
Baltrušaitis’ intellectual biography,3 his aesthetics of
the fantastic, contribution to medieval art history
as well as other research fields have been studied
more consistently by Jean-François Chevrier4 and
Maddalena Mazzocut-Mis.5 Baltrušaitis’ ontology of
the deformity, his interest in anti-Classical modes of
art and investigations of the techniques of anamor­
phoses have been discussed in a special issue of
Quaderni di PsicoArt – Nel cuore della meraviglia
Omaggio a Jurgis Baltrušaitis (2010).6 This article
focuses on Baltrušaitis’ polyptych of “depraved”
perspectives and his scientific dialogue with Athana-
sius Kircher (1602–1680) developed therein. Until
now, researchers of art history and visual culture did
not pay attention to how consistently Baltrušaitis
in them potential subjects to the study of image,
vision and imagination. Therefore this study based
on the material of Baltrušaitis’ archive reconstructs
 for the first time the atemporal dialogue – identi-
fies Baltrušaitis’ references to Kircher and discloses
discourses, which provide an inexhaustible resource
for the studies of art and image-based visual culture
that includes both material and mental picturing,
6 seeing, imagining or visioning.
Baltrušaitis is known as a representative of the aes-
thetic formalism of Henri Focillon (1881–1943).
However, it should be mentioned that in his search
Ž U KAU SK I E N Ė
for a new methodological approach in art history
Baltrušaitis closely collaborated with the members
of the Warburg Institute. He himself participated
in the programme of lectures at the Warburg in
London for 1936 and 1937. From 1940 to 1946 he
organized meetings of “focilloniens” and the mem-
O D E TA
bers of Warburg Institute in his apartment Villa
Virginie (the 14th arrondissement) every Wednes-
day evening.7 Likewise Warburg, Baltrušaitis used a
visual method to present a certain configuration of
images, to compare and confront images, to reveal
their revivals, and to perceive their transforma-
tive powers. He considered the layers of image and
imagination that go beyond the differences between
art and sciences, culture and nature, including dif-
ferent visual objects that participate in the construc-
tion of knowledge. He studied a scientific iconogra-
phy, popular imagery and survival of myths and leg-
ends. And he has laid the greatest stress on fantastic
art forms, various deformations of reality, illusory
and visionary phenomena, much like Warburg in
Dionysian “arts of dreaming” and “emotive formu-
las” (pathosformeln).
A comparative analysis of methods and ideas of the
two influential art historians would require fur-
ther investigation. In this article it is important to
pay attention to the fact that in his search for new
methodological principles Baltrušaitis discovered
a crucial source of inspiration in the works of the
Jesuit polymath Kircher. It is likely that the title of
Baltrušaitis’ project on “depraved” perspectives
that he later called aberrations8 was also born while
reading the Jesuit’s books, in which we often find
the Latin aberrans, aberrare (to stray, to deviate).
As is well known, Athanasius Kircher is an esoteric
thinker whose works embrace natural sciences and
occult philosophy, “sense and nonsense, universal
rules and anecdotes.”9 It needs to be emphasized
that Kircher’s books are lavishly illustrated – dis-
tinguished by spectacular engravings and amazing
iconography.10 Recently, a memorable virtual exhi-
bition Map of Thread. Pages of Athanasius Kircher’s
books was made on the initiative of Vilnius Univer-
sity Library with the help of illustrations revealing
an incredible variety of his activities.11
It is also worth mentioning that despite Kircher’s
fame in the 17th century during the age of Enlighten-
ment he was considered a dilettante and completely
forgotten until the second half of the 20th century.
What led Baltrušaitis to the dialogue with the Ger-
man visionary, who continued to be at the mar-
gins of cultural studies? It seems that in Kircher’s
pre-modern thinking the art historian found those
domains of between-the-two, communalities of art
and science, art and nature, art and social imaginary
that have become more important in postmodernist
period. These readings of forgotten treatises helped
him to develop the studies of images focused on
visual phenomena that remained for a long time
outside the autonomous field of art history.
SCIENTIFIC AND ARTISTIC DEVICES
The first reference to Kircher can be found in
Baltrušaitis book on anamorphoses.12 Contrary to
the approach developed in art history that perspec-
tive is an instrument for exact representation and
reproduction of reality, in his book Baltrušaitis
shows that perspective is an ambivalent phenom-
enon – an anamorphosis is a fantastic side of per-
spective, transposing it into the realm of illusion. In
other words, it is an artificial device that paradoxi-
cally uses the same rules of perspective to project
forms outside themselves and “distorts them so that
when viewed from a certain point they return to
normal.”13 It is a mechanism that produces effective
optical illusions, hallucinations and dreams. Opti-
cal illusions have fascinated scientists, philosophers
and artists of all times beginning from the Greco-
Roman world. Trajan’s Column in the 16th century
was considered as an optical wonder. Kircher was
particularly interested in the accelerated and dis-
torted perspectives that transfigure nature (Fig. 1).14
The virtuosity of Erhard Schön, Leonardo da Vinci,
Hans Holbein and other artists who created over-
lapping (puzzle) pictures and distorted images
reveals that anamorphoses was not just an optical
game. According to Baltrušaitis, in the 16th and
17th centuries research centres were established, in
which sophisticated procedures, techniques and
apparatuses have been elaborated and employed by
scholars and artists to create anamorphic compo-
sitions. The optical contrivances and magic effects
of distorted perspectives were passionately studied
in Paris (Order of the Minims) and Rome (monas-
tery of Santa Trinita dei Monti) by French scholars,
architects, mathematicians, and philosophers (Jean-
François Niceron, Emmanuel Maignan, Marin
Mersenne, René Descartes, Gerard Desargues to
Fig. 1. J. Baltrušaitis, the scheme of Trajan’s column.
Following A. Kircher’s Ars Magna (1646), around 1950s.
Pencil and pen drawing, private Baltrušaitis’ archive, Paris
name just a few) preoccupied with the questions of
illusion, the vision of things, and the uncertainty of
appearances.
In the chapter entitled “German visionaries: Kircher
and Schott” Baltrušaitis discusses Kircher’s con-
tribution to the evolution of anamorphosis. As a
7
scholar and a collector of curiosities Kircher stud-
ied ancient optics, catoptrics, gnomonics and the
BA LT RU Š A I T I S A N D K I R C H E R
T R A N SH I ST O R IC A L D IA L O G U E
medieval tradition of natural magic, as well as cos-
mography and ancient astrological doctrines. He
published on magnetism, music, the celestial, ter-
restrial and subterranean worlds, light and shade,
hieroglyphs of Egypt and a variety of other topics.
Therefore he studied a perspective in a wide and
pre-modern episteme “involved in systems both
real and supernatural.”15 Baltrušaitis examined his
Ars Magna lucis et umbrae (1646),16 in which the
Jesuit scholar researched optical rays and discussed
the problems of natural and artificial perspective, as
well as geometrical and mechanical means of dis-
torting and rectifying pictures.
C O N C E R N I N G
These complex studies encouraged Baltrušaitis not
so much to focus on the pictures in science (scientific
representations and illustrative material) that surely
influenced artistic life, as on the analysis of a wider
sphere of vision and technical visual devices, which
closely link science (arithmetic, geometry, physics)
I M AG E S :
with art by drawing attention to visual perception
and cognition. The study of visual techniques also
led to exploration of the relationship between image
and viewer, reality and unreality, and the illusory
nature of the image itself.
Following the universalist tradition Kircher was
principally interested in perspective instruments
and optical depravations. He himself examined
various systems to calculate perspective and distort
forms. He also re-made himself apparatuses, among
which was a mesoptic instrument that served to put
into perspective any artefact and a magic lantern – a
device to project figures on the screen using light
and shadows – usually displayed in the cabinets of
curiosities. Kircher is not an inventor of the cam-
era obscura, but he is the first to employ a convex
lens to perfect the projected image.17 Therefore he
is considered as a contributor to the evolution of
 projected “ghostly figures” (fantasmatas) and to a
pre-cinema history itself.
From Baltrušaitis’ point of view, he was an extraor-
dinary visionary, who sought to apply anamor-
phic method to the creation of cities, mountains
8 and parks. Kircher claimed that, when viewed
from a certain angle, trees and plants in a garden
could form animals that would look like those in a
painting. Thus in his environment “the perspective
Ž U KAU SK I E N Ė
instrument is no longer a static apparatus, register-
ing visual rays. It becomes an active force, project-
ing around it worlds which are broken up and then
recomposed as if by magic.”18 On his initiative the
aberrations within perspective system that produce
irrational effects and depend on the act of viewing
O D E TA
(the viewer position) moved from the representa-
tion of the space into the real space and the experi-
ence of the space itself.
Kircher investigated the methods of mirror (catop-
tric) anamorphoses too (Fig. 2). He integrated
cylindrical and conical anamorphoses into schol-
arly studies and his own Wunderkammern, there-
fore promoting their dissemination and causing
a particular fascination in wider circles of society.
Engraved illustrations and diagrams of Kircher’s
ten-part book “The Great Art of Light and Shadow”
(containing several hundred images) convey aston-
ishing instruments and projective techniques that
have been attentively studied by Baltrušaitis. As we
can see in his sketches, the art historian explored the
Fig. 2. J. Baltrušaitis, cylindrical mirror causing an image
to appear in the air. Following A. Kircher’s Ars Magna
(1646), around 1950s. Pencil and pen drawing, private
Baltrušaitis’ archive, Paris
engravings in an attempt to better understand the
modes of thinking picturing and forming curious
perspectives.
It seems that Baltrušaitis studies of Kircher’s (as
well as his contemporaries) books helped him to
unlock in a completely different way the 17th cen-
tury, which he called the epoch of Niceron. Reject-
ing the schematic nature of art styles he succeeded
in linking geometrical optics, theological reflections
and artistic experiments with Cartesian doubts and
mechanical automata. Thus he not only resurrected
those personalities, texts, and phenomena that have
been excluded from a positivist paradigm, but also
revealed that the history of perspective is intercon-
nected with the development of optical apparatuses
and processes of visual mediation that are them-
selves the bearers of meaning and in which viewers
are actively involved.
MIRROR SPECTACLES
In a voluminous book Le Miroir (1978) Baltrušaitis
returned to the analysis of Kircher’s Ars magna, in
which the German polymath considered various
phenomena of light and shadow (the sun, moon,
stars, planets) as well as optical instruments that
use mirrors and lenses. Kircher’s purpose was to
provide a universal cosmology and to reveal the
order behind the whole universe, thus he studied
the powers of light and shade and how to put them
to diverse uses. Synthesizing scientific knowledge
he followed the Neoplatonic and hermetic tradition
which associates natural philosophy with natural
magic.19 Baltrušaitis was curious how Kircher devel-
ops rational explanation of the insanities of natural
magic, the marvellous, the irrational and the hidden
order under the mystery of appearances. Showing
the network of connections between different sys-
tems of knowledge Kircher created the metaphys-
ics of light through all traditions of philosophy,
religion and science. He also developed a theory of
two mirrors, one of which is a spotless Angelic mir-
ror reflecting the divine light, and the second one
is a Human mirror reflecting Angel’s light which
undergoes certain refractions and distortions.20
Baltrušaitis took a great interest in the second one –
a distorting mirror.
His final book concentrates on scientific legends
and magic mirrors. It is a work of unusual erudi-
tion, where Baltrušaitis as a diligent encyclopaedist
leads down confusing labyrinths of scientific, philo-
sophical and artistic visions. The book explores the
distorted and distorting, demonic and visionary
history of mirrors which includes both the areas of
rational science and creative visions, the Western
and the Oriental legends that have inspired exiting
and innovating developments in science and tech-
nology. Cosmographical symbols of ancient cul-
tures, optical experiments of the cabinets of curio­
sities, dramatic metaphors of the beyond and the
in-between, phantoms and simulacrum appear in
the richly illustrated book. Reflexio (Latin for reflex-
ion) turns the attention to the depths of human con-
sciousness. As much as artistic creativity captures
the magical power of distorted mirrors, the scien-
tific creativity damages the fragile border between
reality and fantasy.
In the seventeenth century catoptric appara-
tus pondered the laws of vision, incorporating
magic and mythology into scientific experiments.
Fig. 3. J. Baltrušaitis, Machine changing men into animals (metamorphoses). Following A. Kircher’s Ars Magna (1646),
around 1950s. Pencil and pen drawing, private Baltrušaitis’ archive, Paris
Special mechanisms using mirrors were included
in the inventories of rarity cabinets – Kunst-und-
Wunderkammern usually possessing a mechanical
and optical section. The Museum Kircherianum
installed in the Roman College had the most illustri-
ous collection of apparatuses, description of which 9
can be found in Ars Magna.21 Baltrušaitis studied
the technical experiments with mirror reflections by
Kircher and his student Gaspar Schott (1608–1666)
BA LT RU Š A I T I S A N D K I R C H E R
T R A N SH I ST O R IC A L D IA L O G U E
that go well beyond the strictly technical frame-
work. A variety of theatrical machines and meta-
morphic apparatuses created spectacular perfor-
mances. For example, Kircher’s “catoptric theatre”
(theatrum polydicticum) is a box that encloses little
models fixed on both sides of the rotating scenog-
raphy. The shutters with mirrors of the box enlarge
perspective and reflect the exposed objects over-
turned, deformed or suspended in the air, multiply-
ing fantastic representations. Another device looks
like a long box, the interior of which is covered with
mirrors, and the dimensions of which are those of
a small house (6.50 m×3.50 m).22 Those mecha-
C O N C E R N I N G
nisms were associated with considerations about
I M AG E S :
 the transformative powers of reflections and magi-
cal powers of illusions, reviving ancient beliefs com-
bined with theological and Kabbalistic doctrines.
Kircher’s book describes seven metamorphoses and
sophisticated machineries, which with the help of
10 perspectival cones added on the wall and the roof,
transform the viewers and objects in different ways.
As it is shown in the catoptrical installation (Fig. 3)
Ž U KAU SK I E N Ė
the viewer see himself in a mirror as a living being
with the head of a donkey, ox, deer or other ani-
mal, instead of human face. Special devices, coni-
cal, spherical and waved mirrors attached to walls
and ceilings could substitute one image for another,
deforming and restoring figures, and getting ghostly
effects that have exalted imaginings.23
O D E TA
Following Kircher, Baltrušaitis also decrypts the
legend of Archimedes’ “burning mirrors” and
subsequent scientific experiments that the Jesuit
performed in Rome in order to concentrate solar
energy. Baltrušaitis shows that from Archimedes to
Buffon and from ancient catoptric treatises to con-
temporary solar power plants and lasers, mirrors
helped to bring unbelievable ideas into reality. In
lite­rature and in art, man’s strangest metamorpho-
ses begin with mirrors, reviving the ancient tales
and legends. It is a window into the beyond, a spring
of fantasies.
Referring to Kircher and examining the various
fa­cets of magic, distorting, fallacious mirrors that
link the natural and artificial, Baltrušaitis has dis-
closed that the mirror as a meteorological phenom-
enon, optical instrument and universal metaphor is
a phenomenon where reality and illusion, science
and science fiction, calculation and imagination
meet. “A hieroglyph of truth, a mirror is also a hier-
oglyph of falsehood”,24 which reflects a diversity of
imaginary forms and fantasies that have the poten-
tial to be realized in reality.
In summary, it could be said that Baltrušaitis’ dia-
logue with fantasist Kircher and the analysis of his
catoptrics (visionary science par excellence) encour-
aged him to link the history of art with the history
of knowledge, and to include non-art images and
mental imagery in the field of image studies. As well
as to show that the ontological couple of image and
imagination is linked to the remarkable experiments
and visions. And finally, to focus on the image as
a spectacle and process of seeing that engages the
viewer’s imagination.
FUSIONS OF ART AND NATURE
In Aberrations (1957) Baltrušaitis considers visual
phenomena that superimpose visions onto reality,
thus entering into the field of anthropology of the
imagination. According to him, aberrations25 are
positive delusions of vision leading a viewer down
poetic paths. Referring to natural history and natu-
ral philosophy Baltrušaitis exposes the fluidity of
the boundary between art and nature. He depicts
phantasies of natural sciences and delves into a
nature’s art.
The book of four essays shows that a dividing line
between art and nature was not always as clear as
in modernity. Rarities of nature and artworks were
displayed together in Wunderkammern. “In the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a common
aesthetic of the marvels of art and nature emerged,
one that exploited the ancient opposition of art
and nature to evoke wonder”.26 In the essay “Pic-
torial stones” we find illustrations of marvellous
stones and minerals decorated with fabulous fig-
ures. The same hybrids of art and nature have been
also studied in a two volume (atlas-like dimen-
sions) Kircher’s masterwork Mundus Subterraneus
(1665).27
Baltrušaitis’ text begins with a famous quote from
Leonardo da Vinci, depicting his observations of
dotted areas on the wall and mural marble lines that
stimulated artist to enter imaginary landscapes.28 In
the seventeenth century Flemish and Italian artists
used to express such visions by painting directly
on the stone. Baltrušaitis reminds us: “there are a
lot of pictures where the figures were painted on
agates or marbles whose very texture constituted a
landscape décor.”29 Examining those figural stones
(agates, carnelians, chalcedonies, jasper) with the
painted surface, often displayed in a Kunstschranke
(a miniature Kunstkammer), Baltrušaitis considers
mysterious interplays of art and nature and nature
inspired pictorial visions.
Thus he returns again to the works of Kircher who
lived in the times when speculations on the art of
Nature and the nature of Art, reviving ancient meta-
physical doctrines and legendary sources, were
widespread. In Baltrušaitis’ words, namely Kircher
gave the most comprehensive summary of those
doctrines. Kircher’s work, which dates from 1664,
compiles many sources and revives them in a syn-
thesis that is part of his vast cosmogony. Reading
his grandiose book about magical “Subterranean
World” and looking at its striking illustrations
Baltrušaitis writes: “Minerals and metals naturally
do occur acquiring strange appearances. Nature is a
geometer, it is an optician, who follows the progress
of perspective, and it is a painter. It thinks and acts
like a man, and it is subject to the activity of higher
powers.”30
Baltrušaitis reproduces Kircher’s illustrations that
depict image-bearing stones and images made by
nature (Fig. 4). Kircher methodically grouped the
figural stones by subjects, figures, alphabet let-
ters, interpreting their origins in different ways
(starting with fortuitous and ending with divine
and angelic). He studied extensively how nature
31
creates pictures by linking a wide range of knowl-
edge. “Kircher maintained the commonly held
Fig. 4. J. Baltrušaitis, figurative stones. Following A. Kircher’s
Mundus Subterraneus (1665), around 1950s. Pencil and
pen drawing, private Baltrušaitis’ archive, Paris
view of his time that a seminal or seed-like power
manifested at Creation was responsible for the
generation of plants, animals, and even minerals.
According to Kircher, God endowed the world
with panspermia, or the universal seeds of nature,
at Creation.”32 Thus he researched the images made 11
by chance and the fossil bearing stones, exploring
secret creative powers.
BA LT RU Š A I T I S A N D K I R C H E R
T R A N SH I ST O R IC A L D IA L O G U E
Baltrušaitis claims that the ancient Roman tradition
of engraved gems and cameos has been revived in
the 17th century. As is well known, Pliny the Elder
in his Naturalis Historia (77 AD) devoted a sepa-
rate chapter to stones, and in the chapter on the his-
tory of art he drew parallels between paintings and
“organic” images within rocks and minerals. This
Roman tradition was continued in scientific and
religious doctrines during Middle Ages, revealing
the supernatural and creative powers in natural
objects. Rare stones were researched with passion
in the 16th and 17th centuries in the framework
of minerology, which considered various forms
C O N C E R N I N G
and species of stones, trying to define the style of
nature’s images and the forms of visible fossil frag-
ments. The methodically accumulated collections
of minerals, stones and fossils interested not only
naturalists (biologists, geologists, geographers,
physicians) but also artists in awakening their crea-
I M AG E S :
tive imagination.
Picture stones were consistently explored in the 20th
century by the French philosopher and writer Roger
Caillois (1913–1978) in the context of surrealism
and abstract art, when there re-emerged a tendency
to envisage surreal worlds in a complex nature of
reality.33 This topic brought Baltrušaitis closer to
Caillois who tried in a coherent way to explain how
mineral structures resemble abstract paintings.
Contemporary art challenges once again the distinc-
tions between animate and inanimate materials and
features various fossils and arche-fossils, addressing
new materialisms and creating new mineral ontolo-
gies (as a reference to Quentin Meillassoux).34 Thus,
it can be said that Baltrušaitis was one of the first
to touch on the little-explored and relevant field of
mysterious associations of art and nature, bringing
together nature’s artfulness and artistic imagination.
 PHANTASMAGORIC VISIONS: BETWEEN MYTH
AND REALITY
Let’s also remember that Kircher was an orientalist-
comparatist striving to create a universal language.
He is the author of comprehensive book China Illus-
12 trata (1667) and three volume work Oedipus Aegyp-
tiacus (1652–1654) that stimulated the development
of Sinology and Egyptology. Both works involved
creative imagination in the historical (scientific)
Ž U KAU SK I E N Ė
investigations and became important sources for
Baltrušaitis’ studies of Egyptomania published in La
quête d’Isis (1967).
From the point of view of the German Jesuit the most
ancient civilizations of China and Egypt, as well as
O D E TA
their deities, sacred mysteries and hieroglyphs were
closely associated. Kircher drew on the authentic
information of missionaries and diplomats develop-
ing spectacular narratives that indicated contacts and
interaction between different cultures by entering a
fantasy space. In Oedipus Aegyptiacus he gave over-
view of Egypt geography, history, religious and cul-
tural practices, treating Egypt as a primordial source
of different civilisations and eternal wisdom. Kircher
tried to explain why the Egyptian gods (and particu-
larly goddess Isis) were worshipped in ancient Greek
culture and the Roman Empire, and to reveal how
the Egyptian religion interacted with multiple belief
systems. In search of the universality of gods, he dis-
cussed “the affinities between Egyptian religion and
the religious practices and mythologies of China,
Japan, India, Mongolia, and strange enough, the
Aztec culture of America. The similarities, according
to Kircher, result from shared ancestry.”35
Baltrušaitis was accordingly interested in how
Egypt as an exotic land has been explored in differ-
ent epochs and how the Egyptian deities have been
revived repeatedly in different countries. As he puts
it, “Egypt can be found everywhere in a vision of the
past gradually widening. Its deities appear all over
the world, not just in the Ancient Roman provinces,
where they had followers. They can be detected in
the most distant countries – they have been exa­
mined and discovered in India, China, and Mexico.
In Europe itself, according to some historians, Isis
and Osiris came to Germany, Italy, France and Spain
nearly two thousand years BC ago. Various practices
of their cults can be observed until the end of the
Middle Ages. The Egypt renewed by a set of artifices
was superimposed on the historic Egypt columns
and tombs which have been covered with sand and
remained inaccessible.”36
Baltrušaitis methodically explores how the cult
of the goddess Isis survived and has been revived
(since the 7th century BC in the Greek world until
the poetic and revolutionary reveries of the 18th and
19th centuries). He pays special attention to how
in the 17th century missionaries and scholars, who
developed linguistic, ethnological, iconographic
studies and created misleading interpretations of
Egyptian history and fantastic imagery, which was
pushed to the cultural margins in later centuries
by the positivist model of scientific knowledge.
However, those interpretations (as the art historian
emphasizes) constantly stimulated social and cul-
tural imaginary and remained significant sources
for artistic imagination. Thus Kircher’s “mistakes”
had a certain fascination for Baltrušaitis. He saw in
those mistakes the revelation moments stimulating
new discoveries and creations. Therefore he used
to say in his interviews that falsities constitute an
important part of our knowledge.
Let’s take a closer look at a few references to Kircher
in Baltrušaitis’ book “In Search of Isis”. Already in
the introduction we find illustrations of Kircher’s
works demonstrating that Egypt is a primarily source
of spirituality and wisdom. Baltrušaitis writes: “It
[Egypt] is a key to dreams and a cosmogonic arcane.
The Egyptian hieroglyphs, developed at the dawn
of civilization, contain initial truths, including the
dogma of the Trinity and the emblems of Christian-
ity. Father Kircher (from 1650 to 1666) reaches the
summit of the kind of speculations. The Egypt as well
as the whole world is viewed as just like hieroglyphs.
A vast literature abounds on the symbolica Aegyptio-
rum sapientia (Nicolas Caussin, 1634), which arise
profound questions about figurative approach of
hermetic thought in general.”37 It was in Kircher’s
works that the studies of Christian iconography were
developed with the aim to compare it with Egyptian
symbolism (for example, Goddess Isis offering her
breast to god Horus seated on her lap is compared
to representations of the Virgin Mary with Christ
Child), thus searching for religious universality.38

According to Baltrušaitis, Egyptomania was deve­

loped by scientists who, like Kircher, created science-
fictions and “mummy novels” by linking carefully
collected facts with pure imagination. Those fan- 13
tastic images, which were disseminated by philoso-
phers, archaeologists and historians, were also taken
over by artists, who transferred the images of mythi-

BA LT RU Š A I T I S A N D K I R C H E R
T R A N SH I ST O R IC A L D IA L O G U E
cal Egypt and esoteric signs into literature, theatri-
cal scenography and figurative art.

Kircher in his Oedipus Aegyptiacus compared

Isis with druid goddess, depicting her with many
breasts.39 Such an iconography of Isis multimam-
mia intensified comparisons between pagan Celtic
and Christianity beliefs by giving birth to insane
fables in France, Germany, and Italy (Fig. 5). A lot
of fantastic images were born in comparative stud-
ies of civilizations. Kircher’s work is a great example
of this. Compiling information of missionaries and
ancient treatises in his first study (Prodomus coptus

C O N C E R N I N G
sive aegyptiacus, 1636) he already claimed that the
Indians worshipped the same gods as the Egyptians
and built similar temples, and thus he relocated the
Egyptian myth to the Asian region.40

Kircher did not hesitate to distort classical texts

and historical facts in developing his theory of the

“Egyptian colonies” in India and China, which cul-
tivated similar forms of religious life. Baltrušaitis
defines his method as follows: “A display of erudi-
tion, personal names and incontestable facts con-
stitute a framework for creation of fiction – this is
the point of Kircherian method. He was providing
glosses and rewriting ancient texts as needed while
upholding their prestige. He took multitude quota-
tions from different sources, accumulated exclusive
information with a passion, an inflexible dialectic he
changed in favour of confusions to give demonstra-
tions conducted at will. The whole corpus seems to
be the last acquisition of modern knowledge that
corresponds to the time aspiration.”41 As a con-
sequence of such research and the spread of pan-
Egyptianism, it is not surprising that the images
of mystical pyramids and worshipped sacred cows
have spread to the artistic representations of world
creation and other iconographic compositions.
I M AG E S :
Fig. 5. J. Baltrušaitis, Ephesus Isis multimammia with two
deers. Following O. Rudbeck’s (Swedish contemporary of
Kircher) Atlantica sive Manheim (1689), around 1960s.
Pencil and pen drawing, private Baltrušaitis’ archive, Paris
Decorated with wonderful illustrations Kircher’s
China Illustrated (shortly after its publication in
Latin in 1667 translated into German, Dutch, Eng-
lish, and French) continued his scientific fantasies.
Chinese pagodas in his work are associated with the
pyramids of Egypt providing mystical representa-
tions, in which historical narratives are freely inter-
preted, synthesizing pictures and supplementing
images carved in ancient intaglio with new symbols.
In this way he created fanciful figures that combine
symbols of different cultures and civilizations.42
In Baltrušaitis’ words, a multi-layered cultural imagi-
nary always has “a calculated dosage of authenticity”43
 that determines the validity of legends. This is per-
fectly illustrated by the scientific works of Athana-
sius Kircher, study of which help us understand little
researched visual representations and iconographic
curiosities of the 17 as well as the 18 and 19 cen-
th th th
14 turies entrenched in the history of art.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Ž U KAU SK I E N Ė
Once in an interview with a writer and director San-
dra Joxe Baltrušaitis stated, “A German publication
once called me a 20th-century Kircher. That pleased
me a lot, but I doubt Athanasius Kircher would have
liked it. Essentially, I approve of the comparison.
This German Jesuit, a great erudite, was a contem-
O D E TA
porary of René Descartes, a universal thinker, whose
thought spanned theory, mysticism and magic... An
unacknowledged genius. Although, to tell the truth,
one may come across some absurd follies in his trea-
tises as well <…>. He is a true visionary, the oppo-
site of Descartes in a sense, even though the latter’s
Treatise on Man also contains wonderful statements
that illuminate the powers of human reason in a dif-
ferent way. In other words, Descartes had a vision-
ary side, which is usually ignored.”44 However, the
aim of this article was not so much to compare the
authors as to reveal what Baltrušaitis took from
Kircher’s treatises. One should not overestimate the
references to Kircher in Baltrušaitis books, which
are rich in references to little-researched historical
sources, although the fact that the Jesuit scholar is
quoted in all four works of the cycle shows that the
art historian found in his treatises relevant topics for
a broader study of images and their formal, techni-
cal, anthropological and intellectual character.
As can be seen from the analysis of the atemporal
dialogue, it encouraged Baltrušaitis to expand the
boundaries of art history into the domain of the his-
tory of ideas and a wider field of visual studies. As
a consequence in Baltrušaitis’ books visual arts are
included in a more historically neutral discourse on
images and in a complex domain, in which interact
mental and material pictures, social imaginary and
artistic imagination. Without privileging an aesthetic
and evolutionary approach in art history, visual art
is linked to science, nature, fantasy, imagination, and
memory. It functions in an open discourse, remind-
ing us of the tradition of Plinian natural history, in
which arts (artes) encompass a variety of fields,
including a variety of figurative and visual objects.
As a result of the study of Kircher’s treatises and
other lesser-known historical sources, in the series
of Baltrušaitis’ works dedicated to “depraved”
perspectives the image (as formal and informal,
material and psychical phenomenon) has been
researched not only as an iconological support,
but as a complex, vital and vivid structure. The art
historian revealed that images have anthropologi-
cal and ontological dimensions, a study of which
requires use of heuristic methods. However, he also
disclosed that the image is always related to visual
experience and imagination which is linked to illu-
sions, deformations, fallacies, and deceptions that
take us beyond the horizon of reality – although
arising from historical reality and affecting it in one
way or another. Summing up, his works showed that
aberrant visions (hiding metaphysical truths) enter
a phantasmagorical field which is an important
source for a specifically human cognition (embra­
cing order and disorder).
References
Baltrušaitis, Jurgis. Le Miroir: révélations, science-fiction et
fallacies. Paris: Elmayan-Le Seuil, 1978.
Baltrušaitis, Jurgis. Aberrations. Quatre essais sur la
légende des formes. Paris: Flammarion, 1983.
Baltrušaitis, Jurgis. Anamorphic Art, translated by Walter
John Strachan. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985.
Baltrušaitis, Jurgis. Quête d’Isis. Introduction à l’Égypto-
manie. Paris: Flammarion, 1985.
Chastel, André. Reflets et regards. Paris: Éditions de Fal-
lois, 1992.
Chevrier, Jean-François. Portrait de Jurgis Baltrušaitis.
Paris: Flammarion, 1989.
Clark, Stuart. Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern
European Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007.
Daston, Lorraine. “Nature by Design”. In Picturing Scie­
nce, Producing Art, ed. Caroline A. Jones and Peter
Galison, with Amy Slaton. London, New York: Rout-
ledge, 1998. 232–253.
Fletcher, John E. Study of the life and works of Athanasius
Kircher, “Germanus incredibilis”: with a selection of his
unpublished correspondence and an annotated transla-
tion of his autobiography. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2011.
Gould, Stephen Jay. “Father Athanasius on the Isthmus
of a Middle State: Understanding Kircher’s Paleonto­
logy”. In Athanasius Kircher. The Last Man Who Knew
Everything, ed. Paula Findlen. New York, London:
Routledge, 2004. 207–238.
Hochmann, Michel. “André Chastel, sa correspondance,
ses méthodes” in André Chastel (1912–1990). Histoire
de l’art et action publique, ed. Sabine Frommel, Michel
Hochmann and Sébastien Chauffou. Paris: Institut
national d’histoire de l’art, 2013. 5–14.
Inghart, Ashley J. “Filippo Bounanni and the Kircher
Museum” in Museums at the Forefront of the His-
tory and Philosophy of Geology. History Made, His-
tory in the Making, ed. Gary D. Rosenberg and Renee
M. Clary. Geological Society of America, 2018. 45–58.
Joxe, Sandra. “Jurgis Baltrušaitis: pour une science de
dépravation”, L’autre journal, 4, 1985. 46–49.
Kircher, Athanasius. Oedipus aegyptiacus 1–2. Rome:
Vitalis Mascardi, 1652–53.
Kircher, Athanasius. Mundus subterraneus, in XII libros
digestus. Amsterdam: Johann Jansson, 1665.
Kircher, Athanasius. Ars Magna lucis et umbrae, 2nd ed.
Amsterdam: Johann Jansson, 1671.
Kircher, Athanasius. China Illustrata, translated by
Charles D. Van Tuyl. Muskogee, Okla: Indian Univer-
sity Press, 1987.
Meillassoux, Quentin. Après la finitude. Essai sur la néces-
sité de la contingence, préface d’Alain Badiou. Paris:
Éditions du Seuil, 2006.
Mellion, Walter S., Dekoninck, Ralph. “Jesuit Illustrated
Books” in The Oxford Handbook of The Jesuits, ed. Ines
G. Županov. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
521–552.
Merrill, Brian L. Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680), Jesuit
scholar: an exhibition of his woks in the Harold B. Lee
Library collections at Brigham Young University.
Provo, Utah: Friends of the Brigham Young Univer-
sity Library, 1989.
Parcell, William C. “Signs and symbols in Kircher’s
Mundus Subterraneus” in The Revolution in Geology
from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, ed. Gary
D.  Rosenberg. The Geological Society of America,
2009. 63–74.
Notes
1
The three books in the series were first published as
an original trilogy on “depraved” perspectives in a French
collection “Jeu savant” edited by André Chastel: Jurgis
Baltrušaitis, Anamorphoses ou Perspectives curieuses
(Paris: Olivier Perrin, 1955); Aberrations. Quatre essais sur
la légende des formes (Paris: Olivier Perrin, 1957), Essai
sur la légende d’un mythe. La Quête d’Isis. Introduction à
l’Égyptomanie (Paris: Olivier Perrin, 1967). The fourth
book Essai sur une légende scientifique. Le Miroir:
révélations, science-fiction et fallacies (Paris: Elmayan-Le
Seuil, 1978) was published as a final work devoted to the
depravities of thought and vision.
2
André Chastel, Reflets et regards (Paris: Éditions de
Fallois, 1992), 122.
3
About his biography and multicultural background,
see Odeta Žukauskienė, “Jurgis Baltrušaitis: cross-cultural
biography and cross-cultural art history” in History of Art
History in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe 2,
ed. Jerzy Malinowski (Torun: Society of Modern Art:
Tako Publishing House, 2012), 27–34.
4
Jean-François Chevrier, Portrait de Jurgis Baltrušaitis
(Paris: Flammarion,1989), 16.
5
Maddalena Mazzocut-Mis, Deformazioni fantastiche:
introduzione all’estetica di Jurgis Baltrušaitis (Milan:
Mimesis, 1999). 15
6
Quaderni di PsicoArt – Nel cuore della meraviglia
Omaggio a Jurgis Baltrušaitis 1 (2010), ed. Isabelle Mallez
and Raffaele Milani.
7
Michel Hochmann, “André Chastel, sa
BA LT RU Š A I T I S A N D K I R C H E R
T R A N SH I ST O R IC A L D IA L O G U E
correspondance, ses méthodes” in André Chastel (1912–
1990). Histoire de l’art et action publique, ed. Sabine
Frommel, Michel Hochmann and Sébastien Chauffou
(Paris: Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 2013), 6.
8
Baltrušaitis’ letter to Chastel witnesses that he had
an intention to title his book on aberrations Formes et
Fables, but Chastel himself was already thinking to entitle
his work Fables, Formes, Figures. Thus Baltrušaitis had to
look for another title. See Hochmann, 8.
9
Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Anamorphic Art, translated by
Walter John Strachan (New York: Harry N. Abrams,
1985), 79.
10
Images and visualisations were of major importance
in the Jesuit discourse. The visual expressions seeking to
create a memorable visual spectacle were related to the
Spiritual Exercises of Loyola. Kircher’s books illustrated
with countless images clearly demonstrated an effort to
engage a reader in visual narratives. The execution of the
C O N C E R N I N G
illustrations was supported by the Jesuit order. Kircher
executed many preparatory sketches and drawings
on which the illustrations were made by professional
engravers. Three kinds of images populate Kircher’s
treatises: experimental, hypothetical and allegorical
images. See more: Walter S. Mellion and Ralph Dekoninck,
“Jesuit Illustrated Books” in The Oxford Handbook of The
Jesuits, ed. Ines G. Županov (Oxford University Press,
I M AG E S :
2018), 521–552.
11
“Gijų žemėlapis. Athanasius Kircherio knygų
puslapiai“, Vilnius University Library, accessed
May 12, 2020, https://artsandculture.google.com/
exhibit/7wJCK_-Vx6VyIQ?hl=lt
12
New editions have been updated: Jurgis Baltrušaitis,
Anamorphoses ou magie artificielle des effets merveilleux,
2nd ed. (Paris: Olivier Perrin, 1969); Anamorphoses
ou Thaumaturgus Opticus. Les Perspectives dépravéés
(reprint, Paris: Flammarion, 1984).
13
Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Anamorphic Art, 1.
14
The word anamorphosis refers to Greek ana, which
means the return of, and morphē – the form or shape. The
words ‘anamorphosis’, ‘anamophotica’ appear tardily in
Kircher’s disciple Schott’s four-volume Magia universalis
naturae et artis (Wurzburg, 1657–59), in the third part of
the book Optica (1657), called De magia anamorphotica.
Schott, like Kircher, treated optical phenomena and
visual effects in the context of the natural philosophy,
and defined perspective as ‘anamorphic magic’. However,
the term ‘anamorphosis’ was introduced long after the
practice itself existed. Anamorphic drawings, engravings
and paintings were particularly numerous in the sixteenth-
century Germany. But a consistent and clear definition of
the artistic practice did not exist: the pictorial technique
was usually described as ‘curious perspective’ or ‘reversed
 perspective’. See also Stuart Clark, Vanities of the Eye:
Vision in Early Modern European Culture (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 105.
15
Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Anamorphic Art, 79.
16
Athanasius Kircher, Ars magna lucis et umbrae in
decem libros digesta (Romae: Hermanni Scheus, 1646).
17
John E. Fletcher, Study of the life and works of
16 Athanasius Kircher, “Germanus incredibilis”: with a
selection of his unpublished correspondence and an
annotated translation of his autobiography (Leiden,
Boston: Brill, 2011), 145.
18
Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Anamorphic Art, 91.
Ž U KAU SK I E N Ė
19
Catherine Chevalley, “L’Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae
d’Athanase Kircher. Néoplatonisme, hermétisme et
«nouvelle philosophie”, Baroque 12 (1987), 95–109,
https://doi.org/10.4000/baroque.584
20
Ibid.
21
Athanasius Kircher. Ars Magna, 2nd ed. (Amsterdam:
Johann Jansson, 1671), 769, 783, 809–12. A detailed
catalogue of the Museum Kircherianum edited by
Georgius de Sepibus: Romani collegiiSocietatis Jesu
O D E TA
musaeum celeberrimum (Amsterdam: dex officina
Janssonio-Waesbergianae Sepibus, 1678).
22
Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Le Miroir: révélations, science-
fiction et fallacies (Paris: Elmayan-Le Seuil, 1978), 20–23.
23
Ibid., 35.
24
Ibid., 281.
25
Aberration as an astronomical term defines objects or
images which are seen where they do not exist.
26
Lorraine Daston, “Nature by Design” in Picturing
Science, Producing Art, ed. Caroline A. Jones and Peter
Galison, with Amy Slaton (London, New York: Routledge,
1998), 238.
27
Athanasius Kircher, Mundus subterraneus, in XII
libros digestus (Amsterdam: Johann Jansson, 1665).
28
Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Aberrations. Quatre essais sur la
légende des formes (Paris: Flammarion, 1983), 55.
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid., 64–66.
31
About Kircher’s interpretations of stones and his
tacsonomic division of images within rocks see more:
Stephen Jay Gould, “Father Athanasius on the Isthmus of
Odeta ŽUKAUSKIENĖ
Lietuvos kultūros tyrimų institutas, Vilnius, Lietuva
TRANSISTORINIS DIALOGAS APIE VAIZDŲ GYVENIMĄ:
BALTRUŠAITIS IR KIRCHERIS
Santrauka
Straipsnyje aptariami Jurgio Baltrušaičio (1903–1988) iškreiptoms perspektyvoms skirti veikalai, kuriuose analizuo-
jama anamorfozės, aberacijos, egiptomanijos raiška ir iškraipančių veidrodžių istorija. Dėmesys sutelkiamas į juose
aptinkamas nuorodas į jėzuitų mokslininko Athanasijaus Kircherio (1602–1680) traktatus. Straipsnyje klausiama,
kas paskatino Baltrušaitį susidomėti ir leistis į dialogą su vokiečių vizionieriumi. Atidžiai skaitant ir analizuojant
a Middle State: Understanding Kircher’s Paleontology” in
Athanasius Kircher. The Last Man Who Knew Everything,
ed. Paula Findlen (New York, London: Routledge, 2004),
207–238. William C. Parcell, “Signs and symbols in
Kircher‘s Mundus Subterraneus“ in The Revolution in
Geology from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, ed.
Gary D. Rosenberg (The Geological Society of America,
2009), 63–74.
32
Ashley J. Inghart, “Filippo Bounanni and the Kircher
Museum” in Museums at the Forefront of the History
and Philosophy of Geology. History Made, History in the
Making, ed. Gary D. Rosenberg and Renee  M.  Clary
(Geological Society of America, 2018), 46.
33
Roger Caillois, Pierres, suivi d’autres textes (Paris:
Gallimard, 1970); Pierres réfléchies (Paris: Gallimard,
1975).
34
Quentin Meillassoux, Après la finitude. Essai sur la
nécessité de la contingence, préface d’Alain Badiou (Paris:
Éditions du Seuil, 2006).
35
Brian L. Merrill, Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680),
Jesuit scholar: an exhibition of his works in the Harold
B. Lee Library collections at Brigham Young University
(Provo, Utah: Friends of the Brigham Young University
Library, 1989), 24.
36
Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Quête d’Isis. Introduction à
l’Égyptomanie (Paris: Flammarion, 1985), 10.
37
Ibid., 13.
38
Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus aegyptiacus II (Rome:
V. Mascardi, 1653), 164.
39
Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus aegyptiacus I (Rome:
V. Mascardi, 1652), 190.
40
Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Quête d’Isis. Introduction à
l’Égiptomanie, 152.
41
Ibid., 154.
42
Athanasius Kircher, China Illustrata, translated by
Charles D. Van Tuyl (Muskogee, Okla: Indian University
Press, 1987).
43
Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Quête d’Isis. Introduction à
l’Égyptomanie, the dust cover.
44
Sandra Joxe, entretien avec Jurgis Baltrušaitis “Jurgis
Baltrušaitis: pour une science de dépravation”, L’autre
journal, 4 (1985), 49.
Baltrušaičio darbus, aiškėja, kad ikimoderniame Kircherio mąstyme menotyrininkas atrado tarpines sritis, egzis-
tuojančias tarp meno ir mokslo, meno ir gamtos, dailės ir socialinės vaizduotės, kurios tapo aktualesnės postmoder-
nizmo laikotarpiu. Kircherio traktatai, iki tol nenagrinėti meno istorijos kontekste, paskatino plėtoti vaizdų tyrimus,
orientuojantis į įvairesnius vizualinius reiškinius, kurie ilgą laiką liko už autonominio meno istorijos lauko ribų.
Atmetęs estetinį ir evoliucinį požiūrį į dailės istoriją, Baltrušaitis aptariamų veikalų cikle atskleidė antropologinius
ir ontologinius vaizdų matmenis, parodydamas, kad vaizdas visada susijęs su vaizdine patirtimi ir vaizduote, kuri 17
perkelia mus už realybės horizonto.
Reikšminiai žodžiai: Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Athanasius Kircheris, meno istorija, vaizdų tyrimai, vizualinės studijos,
anamorfozės, aberacijos, egiptomanija, gamta ir menas.

BA LT RU Š A I T I S A N D K I R C H E R
T R A N SH I ST O R IC A L D IA L O G U E
Gauta 2020-05-20
Parengta spaudai 2020-09-20

Odeta ŽUKAUSKIENĖ
Senior researcher at the Department of Comparative Culture Studies, Lithuanian Culture Research
Institute (Vilnius, Lithuania). She has published a number of papers on cultural and art history, aesthetics,
visual culture and memory studies. Her books include Metamorphoses of Art Forms: Comparative Art
Studies by Focillon and Baltrušaitis (2006), Trajectories of Memory and Glance: A Reflection on Visual
Culture (co-authored with Žilvinė Gaižutytė-Filipavičienė, 2019). She is a co-editor of book Culture in
the Network Society: Identity Industry (2017) and contributor to the book In the Labyrinth of Narratives:

C O N C E R N I N G
Lithuanian and Ukrainian Museum Experiences (2019).
E-mail: odeta.zukauskiene@gmail.com

I M AG E S :