Volvox
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Volvox or volvoce is an engraving by Grandville [1][2], from the Public and Private Life of Animals (1840-1842) collection of texts. It represents cholera and comments on the Second cholera pandemic (1829-1851).
Volvox is a genus of chlorophytes, a type of green algae, first reported by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1700.
The particular story which was illustrated by Grandville's Volvox is "Les Amours de deux bêtes" by Honoré de Balzac and it makes reference to cholera:
- « Le Volvoce, comme le choléra en 1833, passait en se nourrissant de monde » ("The Volvoce, like the cholera of 1833, passed by, feeding on people").
Michael Camille (1958-2002) in The Gargoyles of Notre-Dame: Medievalism and the Monsters of Modernity comments on the female and even vagina dentata nature of the beast:
- Grandville also feminized the disease, giving a vaginal devouring mouth and breastlike eyes to his illustration of the Volvoce."
The engraving was executed by Louis-Henri Brévière and the illustration was also used on the cover of the Queen single "I'm Going Slightly Mad."
References
An internet version of this image carries the title "A volvox epidemic strikes the near-microscopic world of the scale insects"
