The Scientific Images of the Axolotl by José María Velasco and Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Evolutionary Thinking

Abstract

This paper examines the study and images of the Mexican amphibian axolotl published by the Mexican landscape painter José María Velasco in 1879. Soon thereafter Velasco encountered the study of the same amphibian written by the German Neo-Darwinist August Weismann. Velasco disputed Weismann’s evolutionary views and defended his own observations. Through an analysis of Velasco’s images, I argue that their aesthetic features were strategic to developing a biological explanation of the creature’s development. This interaction between image and scientific explanation sheds light on the significance of visual objects within the expansion of Darwinism in the late nineteenth century, and within the development of laboratory research. I argue that changes in global scientific networks and the expansion of new techniques of research necessitate a rethinking of the nexus between observation and the scientific image.