Moby Dick chapter 55: Of monstrous pictures of Whales.
Moby Dick is all about whales and whaling and everything else. If you find anything connected to a whale you will find some mentioning in the Moby Dick. Consider it to a dictionary on whaling. In a time of scarce resources like 1800s, I wonder how Herman Melville gained all the necessary information, from where? From a library? From newspapers? By interviewing people? Maybe majority of his novel is fictional, yet I am sure at some point he referred to history books when writing chapter 55: which is about artwork of Whales. There he lists out all the places where you can find a picture of the Levithan, from ancient Indian culture to illustrations in old scientific books.
Resources he mentioned.
Ancient Hindu sculptures
Ancient Egyptian sculptures
Ancient Greek sculptures
Elephant Caves, India
Guido’s painting of Perseus Rescuing Andromeda
William Hogarth’s Perseus Descending
Robert Sibbald’s Prodromus whale illustrations
Jonah’s whale in old Bible prints
Whale illustrations in old primers (children’s textbooks)
The bookbinder’s whale — dolphin and anchor emblem
Whale illustrations in old scientific books
Shop signs depicting whales
He uses these resources to discuss about how art imperfectly represent the reality although the artist is supposed to do that correctly. Although illustrations provide some information, most of them are erroneous due to various factors. Such as not being able to see the whole extent of the whales, at an era where underwater cameras are not there this was a major obstacle. To him even scientists can make mistakes, and the complete whale is not a creature which can be fully represented in drawing. So, our representations of reality are not necessarily the reality itself.
What is reality?
Melville's conclusion about reality, still applies today. Even today scientists discover "new" theories and discard old ones. Even today artists make mistakes, deliberately on canvass. Knowing that it is nothing but a distorted reality. Consider impressionist technique. But now we are better at our technology to capture a moment. We now do have underwater cameras, to capture full extent of a whale. We can record videos and sounds that they make. If you really want, you can even picture inside a whale with a video endoscopy. Use a thermal camera to map its temperature. All these provide valuable information about a whale. The question still remains; do we now know what is a whale better than what we knew 150 years ago?
Why Reality is ungraspable
Although our technology has improved, still reality is ungraspable. As everything not reality is not reality itself. So a picture drawn about a whale is not a real whale. A video about a whale is not a real whale. An Xray of a whale is not a real whale. How about an experience about a whale? A memory about a whale? A sight of a whale? Is a sight of a whale a real whale? It seem all these things are related to subjective reality. We always see a part of the whale, no matter how much better our cameras are our eyes are not capable of seeing everything. It only sees a tiny area of the reality at a time. Even this is just a representation in our brain which appears to be tangible only when connected with past experience of a whale. A good question to ask here would be has anyone seen a real whale ever?
If you would like to explore this idea, you can read the article Thing1 and Thing2, these are characters of Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss.
As a conclusion, we can say the more we are aware of our experience, more will question the reality we see. And better our understanding about it. And we can thank Herman Mellville for this ageless wisdom in his classic MOBY DICK.
Moby Dick chapter 55
conclusion from Moby Dick chapter 55 as given by Melville
"For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit the mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very considerable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding out precisely what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in which you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is by going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you had best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan."
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