“Creation and Creativity in the Holkham Bible. Ingenuity in Early Modern art and science”

In my paper I suggest, firstly, that the ape and the composite creature are located together with the angel in the sphere beyond human visibility, a sphere that is accessible through the imagination, the vis imaginativa. This division between two spheres of perception, a divine and a human sphere will be resolved at the end of time as referred with the metaphor of the mirror which will be polished and clear again. Secondly, the choice of the ape with the mirror is a pictorial pun drawing on the “simia” metaphor, revealing the artist’s irony.