Mellan ideal och vetenskap: bild-textdissonanser i framställningar av djur i Svenska Familj-Journalen 1877–1882

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines the Swedish 19th century family magazine, Svenska Familj-Journalen, and the interaction between bourgeois attitudes, science, and depictions of animals. My main purpose is to demonstrate how image-text divergences can discover ruptures between 19th century bourgeoise ideology and science. The study consists of a selection of illustrations and texts, the majority being popular zoology depictions that were published in the magazine between 1877–1882. By using nature-culture oppositions as well as art historian Sonya Petersson’s concept of the counteractive illustration, I am able to elucidate differences between texts and images. The texts and images are subsequently analyzed by relating them to contemporary scientific discourses, as well as to the early Swedish animal welfare and nature conservation movements.  The results of this study are that image-text divergences reveal 1) that images of animals could depict the animal as such, rather than as a symbol of bourgeois ideals, 2) an insecurity in the magazine’s attitudes toward Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, illustrating circumstances where the magazine chose to adhere to its ideological dispositions rather than accept Darwinian consensus, 3) that the magazine, in publishing texts that were critical of wild life exploitation, diverged from its progress oriented narrative, and that its use of images counteracted these messages.