Flammarion Engraving - Later Uses and Interpretations

Later Uses and Interpretations

The Flammarion engraving was used as an illustration in C. G. Jung's Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies (1959), and in The Mathematical Experience (1981) by Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh. It served as the cover illustration for Daniel J. Boorstin's The Discoverers (1983), a bestselling account of the history of science, for Richard Sorabji's Matter, Space & Motion: Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel (1988), Stephan Hoeller's Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing (2002), Gunther Stent's Paradoxes of Free Will (2002), and more recently for William T. Vollmann's Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (2006). Donovan's 1973 LP, Cosmic Wheels, had a copy in its inner sleeve. Electropostpunkadelic group Alice Sweet Alice (2011) of Kansas City, Missouri, used the illustration for various websites and merchandise.

Some commentators have claimed that Flammarion produced the image to propagandize the myth that medieval Europeans widely believed the Earth to be flat. In his book, however, Flammarion never discusses the issue of the shape of the Earth. His text suggests that the image is simply a fanciful illustration of the false view of the sky as an opaque barrier.