Publisher Penguin are marking the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species with this rather splendid edition boasting cover art painted by Damien Hirst.
Says Hirst of the project:
I was given a paperback copy of On the Origin of Species many years ago by a friend and I loved it, especially the contentious aspects of it. Being brought up a Catholic and questioning the nonsensical creation theory, it was exciting... I suppose the work, in a modest way, acknowledges Darwin's analytical mind and his courage to believe in those ideas that questioned the very fabric of existence and belief in his time.
Full article and artwork at the Guardian Science Blog. Worth going to for the comments alone.
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Apparently it's not true that Hirst's original choice was a picture of Ben Stein's head in a tank of formaldehyde.
That painting is hideous! blech!
I'll say one thing, its certainly different from my proposed cover for Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle".
http://sneerreview.blogspot.com/2009/01/on-beagle.html
Hirst is proof that capitalism kills art. Wealthy speculators investing in a portfolio of pieces that make only the shallowest social commentary imaginable. Ah, but they make *money*.
Must be good, huh?
Poor Darwin deserves someone compelling.
That will go great with my copy of The Descent of Man with the H. R. Giger cover.
It's a ripoff of the style of '50s-era Francis Bacon, especially the pope series.
And a human skull? How trite and generic.
Haven't you heard, Colugo? Diamond encrusted skulls are Hirst's thang now. It's all deep. Real deep. About death... and... wealth... and, um, social ills! Yes. Millions and millions of dollars deep.
Phew, I always hated that guy. I was worried I was the only one.
thanks.
Looks like Damien Hirst illustrating a pamphlet about the evils of evolution by Jack Chick.
As I noted in a comment at Bioephemera, "Hell, that's the cover a militant Creationist would choose if they wished to portray evolution as a godless, soulless, hopeless, cold, thing of pointless struggle and death."