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Long
before anyone set up the first easel, or even carved a
bulbous fertility goddess, the world was full of visual
signs: that is, one bit of the world influenced another
not by brute force, physical, chemical or sexual
attraction, but merely by the way it looked. I am
referring to the myriad example of natural mimicry.
A South
American moth (Draconia rusina) imitates a dead
leaf, not only in its tattered leaf margins but in
transparent patches through which appears the familiar
leaf-skeleton pattern. A spider (Ornithosaloides
decipiens) spins a web on a leaf which resembles a
bird's droppings, including a still-wet-looking portion.
A plaice adjusts the colour of its surface cells to match
whatever pattern is swimming beneath it (in the
laboratory it can do a passable imitation of a chess
board). In these few examples from the countless ones
available the purpose is to avoid capture by predators or
to appear innocuous in order to effect capture of prey.
Different
forms of mimicry are sometimes displayed at different
times by the same species. Some butterfly larvae, like
those of Leucorhampa ornatus, have both
camouflaged and aggressive phases. It normally hangs
motionless from a branch where its colouring gives it the
appearance of a dead lichen-covered branch. If it fears
its camouflage has failed, it rears up, puffs out its
hind end where various previously hidden yellow, green
and black markings give it the appearance of a snake. It
completes the effect by swaying from side-to-side in
snake-like fashion. There is something inherently
thrilling in the idea of animals and plants being able to
mimic each other. Literary metaphors and similes are
reversible: so are the visual similes of the natural
world. The Bee orchid's imitation of a bee is reversed in
insects that mimic the colour of flowers, hiding amongst
the petals to seize their prey. The yellow and green
cicadas, Ityraea gregorii, even sit in a row
along the stems of plants pretending to be flowers.
Imitation
and mimicry are not confined to appearances: as in the
snake-like larva, behaviour is copied too. Just as many
benign insects pretend to be hostile to gain a quiet
life, some reverse this: the Cleaner fish is a coral-reef
inhabitant that has a licence to approach larger fish and
ferret around for diseased patches and parasites, which
the Cleaner duly tidies up, to their mutual benefit. But
then along comes the Sabre-toothed slime fish, which
looks sufficiently like a Cleaner to fool most of the
Cleaner's clients, but instead of licking off the crud,
it takes advantage of its proximity to nip chunks out of
its host's fin. Fireflies communicate by periodic
flashing: this is how the female attracts mates. But
female fireflies of the genus Photinus imitate
the flash pattern of Photuris fireflies in order
to lure males and consume them. Forgery has always been a
route to a quick killing.
All forms
in nature are related to survival and there is abundant
evidence that for many species their face - or more
likely their backside - is their fortune. That is, their
appearance is designed to attract, repel, or to be a
disguise against, other species. Now it is obvious that
these visual characteristics are a matter of life or
death for the organisms concerned, but the fundamental
biology of many different species is the same - what
matters is the surface difference in appearance: the
decoration is the functional element. In all of the
arguments about decoration and function and structure in
art it has never been considered that in nature it is
often the decoration that does the real work. H. B. Cott,
in his classic study of mimicry, Adaptive Coloration
in Animals has said: 'The resemblance is literally
superficial, rather than structural - that is to say, it
is generally due to the most ingenious and deceptive
disruptive patterns, which give the optical impression of
irregular processes and deep interstices - even when
painted, as they often are, on the flat canvas or on the
void abdomen of a spider...Everywhere we see the same
story: the superficial nature of the appearance; and the
independent manner of its production'.
What is
perhaps even more significant for theories of art and the
metaphysics of reality is that complex semiotic messages
- flowers signifying bees, cicadas on a branch signifying
flowers - are being recognised all the time without the
intervention of human beings and their philosophical
problems. It is an orthodoxy of postmodernist antirealist
philosophies that images cannot represent the external
world. Such theories stem from linguistics (Hilary
Lawson: 'It is the role of language rather than the role
of the subject which threatens to dismantle the edifice
of objective reality'). but have spread to include all
forms of representation of the external world in science
and art. But how can we doubt human representation when
it is obviously occurring even in creatures like the bee
orchid that don't possess a nervous system.
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