Frank Swain is a science writer and blogger. He is based in the UK.
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Keep up to date with RSSPublisher 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.
Life Science
Comments
Apparently it's not true that Hirst's original choice was a picture of Ben Stein's head in a tank of formaldehyde.
Posted by: Sigmund | January 27, 2009 11:16 AM
That painting is hideous! blech!
Posted by: iRobot | January 27, 2009 12:05 PM
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
Posted by: Sigmund | January 27, 2009 12:25 PM
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.
Posted by: Matty Smith | January 27, 2009 12:55 PM
That will go great with my copy of The Descent of Man with the H. R. Giger cover.
Posted by: James F | January 27, 2009 1:20 PM
It's a ripoff of the style of '50s-era Francis Bacon, especially the pope series.
And a human skull? How trite and generic.
Posted by: Colugo | January 27, 2009 6:04 PM
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.
Posted by: Matty Smith | January 27, 2009 6:08 PM
Phew, I always hated that guy. I was worried I was the only one.
Posted by: Nichole | January 27, 2009 8:49 PM
thanks.
Posted by: söve | January 27, 2009 10:05 PM
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."
Posted by: Jon H | February 3, 2009 2:38 PM