Flammarion engraving

Uncommon card · No. 123008

The Flammarion engraving is a wood engraving by an unknown artist. Its first documented appearance is in the book L'atmosphère : météorologie populaire ("The Atmosphere: Popular Meteorology"), published in 1888 by the French astronomer and writer Camille Flammarion. Several authors during the 20th century considered it to be either a Medieval or Renaissance artwork, but it is now seen as a 19th-century illustration of unknown authorship that imitates older artistic styles and themes. Camille Flammarion himself may have been the artist, or designer; he had trained as an engraver. The illustration depicts a man, dressed as a pilgrim in a long robe and carrying a walking stick, who has reached a point where the flat Earth meets the firmament. The pilgrim kneels down and passes his head, shoulders, right arm, and the top of the walking stick through an opening in the firmament, which is depicted as covered on the inside by the stars, Sun, and Moon. Behind the sky, the pilgrim finds a marvelous...

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