Penser la science en termes de différences sexuelles. Une expérience sur un oiseau dans une pompe à air de Joseph Wright of Derby

Peter Wagner : Gendering science. Joseph Wright of Derby's An Experiment on a bird in the air pump. Instead of inquiring into the scientific beckground of this famous painting (which has often been used to demonstrate the consequences of the Industrial Revolution), this article focuses on the strategic reappropriations of representations of women. Derby's Air Pump proves to be a work of art that is only superficially concerned with science. At the heart of the picture we find such issues as the secularisation of miracles, the attribution of traditional gender roles in the context of the new sciences and male-female reactions and ways of seeing. What makes the painting remarkable is the mixture of several 'frames' of representation : religion, magic and the gothic, the sentimental, and physics. These all work together in the manufacture of credibility and a new idea of femininity that allotted women a passive, marginal role in the public sphere.Wagner Peter. Penser la science en termes de différences sexuelles. Une expérience sur un oiseau dans une pompe à air de Joseph Wright of Derby. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°31, 1999. Mouvement des sciences et esthétique(s) sous la direction de Christine Rolland, François Azouvi et Michel Baridon. pp. 283-301