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Darwinism or symbolism? Emmanuel Frémiet's Bear Cub Snatcher , Jardin des Plantes, Paris.

As a one-time ‘fledgling palaeontologist’ inspired by Frémiet's sculptures in the Paris Jardin des Plantes, I read with interest Martin Kemp'spiece on their relevance to the public understanding of palaeontology and evolution ( Nature, 396, 727; 1998). However, his interpretation prompts some comments.

Besides the bronze relief Man Triumphant over Two Bears,shown by Kemp, there is another sculpture by Frémiet in the Jardin des Plantes depicting the struggle between man and bear — with apparently a completely different outcome. Le dénicheur d'oursons (‘Bear Cub Snatcher’ ) is a large bronze statue standing near a children'splayground not far from the Galerie d'Anatomie Comparée et de Paléontologie. It shows a prehistoric hunter, a strangled bear cub tied to his waist, in the deadly embrace of an adult bear (presumably the mother). There is a knife stuck in the bear'sthroat, but the animal is clearly in the process of breaking the hunter'sback. This statue is thus a ‘mirror image’ of man triumphant. So, even in the popular scientific mythology of the late nineteenth century illustrated by Frémiet's work, the triumph of man over beast was far from assured (as also in Frémiet's Orang-utan strangling a native of Borneo, also shown by Kemp).

But the prominence of Frémiet's depiction of the struggle between primitive man and beasts in the Galerie d'Anatomie Comparée et de Paléontologie is actually something of a paradox. Kemp'slabelling of Albert Gaudry, who conceived the Galerie, as “the leading French advocate of Darwin'stheories” is misleading.

Gaudry was an evolutionist, and wrote that he had read Darwin'sOrigin of Species“with passionate admiration” and had “savoured it slowly, as one drinks a delicious liqueur”. Nonetheless he had no taste for natural selection as envisioned by Darwin, and admitted that he was “far from Darwin'sphilosophical ideas in some respects”. (Gaudry'squotations here are translated from ref. 1).

Because of his strong religious belief in a harmonious Creation, in which chance and struggle had no place, Gaudry developed an idyllic view of evolution2, in which carnivores fed on herbivores to put an end to their sufferings when they grew old, and living beings developed according to a benevolent divine plan. He was convinced that “there was no competition for life, everything was harmonious”. This was a far cry from mainstream Darwinism, especially its nineteenth-century incarnation.

Seen in that light, Frémiet's work stands as a symbol for the triumph of the human spirit (seen by Gaudry as the “marvel of Creation”) over brute strength rather than a depiction of a Darwinian struggle for life.

In any case, whatever their exact cultural significance, these late nineteenth-century sculptures are more artistically interesting than the derelict and scientifically inaccurate fibreglass stegosaur, a late twentieth-century addition, that now ‘adorns’ the grounds of the Galerie d'Anatomie Comparée et de Paléontologie.