Physiology of the Impossible - continued...

Exner meets mythology

Detail of Raphael, Galathea

Twenty years before the floating buzzard occupied Exners mind, some other flying objects had accompanied him on his mountain hikes: "Last summer", Exner noted in 1882, "certain figures from great masters' works of art followed me on my lonesome hikes through hills and ravines pushing themselves in the foreground and asking for an answer to their riddle". The riddle Exner refered to concerned those well-known saints, putti, and angels that painters had depicted for centuries. How could they keep their bodies in the air against the law of gravity? In 1882 Exner published his results under the title: The Physiology of Flying and Floating in the Fine Arts (Die Physiolgie des Fliegens und Schwebens in den bildenden Künsten).