1

The Axolotl Scientific Images of José María Velasco: Nineteenth Century Visual
Strategies and Evolution

Omar Olivares Sandoval1

Abstract:

José María Velasco (1840-1912), Mexican landscape painter of late 19th century was an active producer
of scientific images for many publications. In 1879, he published a study with three accompanying
axolotl images, an amphibian that posed many troubles to the international Neo-Darwinist community,
headed by the German zoologists Ernst Haeckel and August Weismann. Through his research and
drawings of the anatomy of the amphibian, Velasco disputed the main concepts of the theory of
recapitulation using the image as evidence but also as a visual parameter of observation. Though not a
well-known episode, even in the Mexican history of science, Velasco’s study reached and contributed to
the discussion of global circuits of science and demonstrated the problematic relation between Neo-
Darwinism and the visualization of evolution theory.

My analysis focuses on three images, a series of zoological plates of the axolotl (ambystoma), an
amphibian, produced by José María Velasco, a Mexican academic painter, in 1879. The three images
accompanied a study, written by the painter himself, about one particularity about this species: its ability
to lose its external gills and transform into a terrestrial salamander. By the same time, August Weismann,
a renowned evolutionary biologist, was experimenting also with the transformation of the axolotl. After
knowing Weismann’s thoughts on the matter, Velasco felt capable to shed some light on the case. This
episode breaks with the traditional conception of the interaction between the painter and the scientist,
where the former is merely depicted as the illustrator of the ideas of the latter. It also help us understand
the intersection between arguments (or, to put it in epistemological terms, knowledge) and images (or,
from a pejorative epistemological approach, illustrations).
By studying the Velasco–Weismann controversy, my objective is to question a rich theoretical
background, based on notions like objectivity, amateurism, and the dynamic between the center and the
periphery inherited from colonialism. I could even explore the reasons behind the diverse collaborations
between landscape painters and scientific endeavors in the 18th and 19th centuries (which have also been
highlighted by Barbara Novak, Charlotte Klonk, Timothy Mitchell, Rebecca Bedell, and many others).
Furthermore, my research could also help to understand why landscape visual culture was in itself a kind
of knowledge that possessed qualities from the realms of art and science, joined in a single visual and
empirical unity, and which Humboldt tried to theorize in his Cosmos.
Lastly, the Velasco’s axolotl case is also related to the development of evolutionary theory, a
subject that has its own particularities in the history of science. For example, how was it possible to
discard one specific theory of evolution, namely, the theory of recapitulations? Moreover, in what manner
the axolotl case and its visual representation contributed to that? And, what role scientific visualization
played in legitimizing Darwinism, especially if we consider that natural history was built on enormous

1
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).
2

atlas of images, whereas On the Origin of the Species had only one and it was a diagram.2 Although
Velasco´s arguments were not conclusive for discarding Weismann´s and Haeckel´s theories of
recapitulation, his research echoed in the international extent of science, and especially in Francophone
spaces, which was the language of science in the late 19th century. This echo of Velasco’s study in
international setting was likely due to the shared anxieties of many scientific communities about
Darwinism and their hunger to prove that the whole concept of evolution was erroneous and morally
dangerous.
However, axolotl case was not entirely a problem of morality, at least not in the sense of taking
position and/or defend beliefs, as it was a problem of giving arguments, which Velasco fulfilled. In this
task, his images and the skills he had to create them were crucial. For Mexican history of art this focus
implies the examination of the landscapist figure, in which it has not been debated the conservative
character of the painter as a serious issue, neither has considered his scientific activities as central to his
general concept of landscape, which in many cases, was generally understood as an attempt to create a
national imagery. This is a reading of Velasco in which I agree most of the time. However, I propose a
more complex approach by focusing on the subtleties of his image production for science, which traces a
more nuanced path than the one-way problem of visualize the national. The interpretation of Mexican art
history has created an image of Velasco as the prototypical academic painter, the most renowned in the
late 19th century in Mexico, and sometimes presenting him as an illustrator of Porfirian ideologies.3
However, these are the most simplistic explanations.

The axolotl case

José María Velasco (1840-1912) began his studies at the Academy of San Carlos in 1858, when
he was 18-years-old. He was an apprentice of the Italian painter Eugenio Landesio, a landscape painter
educated in Rome, who had already a strong concept on the role of landscape for general science. Besides
from learning landscape painting, Velasco took lessons on botany and zoology at the School of Medicine,
where the main course on natural history was taught. This experience seems particularly important for
Velasco’s later engagement on many scientific tasks. He became teacher of landscape at the Academy
and a member of the Sociedad Mexicana de Historia Natural (Mexican Natural History Society) founded
in 1868.
In 1879 he published the article Descripción, metamorfosis y costumbres de una especie nueva
del género Siredón (Description, Metamorphosis and Habits of a New Species of the Siredon Genre) in
the society’s magazine La Naturaleza. It is important to say that this magazine was conceived as the main
publication of the society. It was printed continually in its first period, from 1868 to 1914. Also, it was
intended to reach international audiences. We know, for example, that the magazine was usually sent to
the Smithsonian Institute, in Washington D.C., where today we can find many of its volumes.
To understand the work of Velasco and his contribution to the scientific culture of his period, we
must follow the thread after the publication of his first article. A year later, in 1880, the same magazine

2
Horst Bredekamp
3
The Porfiriato is used to refer the many presidential periods of Porfirio Díaz, and his political hegemony in his many times
as ruler, between 1877 and 1910.
3

published an article from August Weismann, making his own conclusions about the transformation of the
amphibian, through the lens of evolutionary theory. Velasco replied to Weismann and objected his
observations. The elements issued from this leash and the conclusions are of major interest for the
historical thinking on the intersections of Art and Science.
At first instance Velasco´s article had the intention to follow the works of Gustave Cuvier and
Auguste Duméril about the transformation of the Axolotl into a salamander, and to acknowledge the
transformation in Mexico, as it had be already done in Paris by Duméril. At first glance, Velasco had no
other goals apart from describing the transformation.4 To describe the axolotl, Velasco employed the
method of comparative anatomy and the rules established by Cuvier. Velasco’s approach to the axolotl
can be identified , at first sight, as a descriptive one, which was needed for the taxonomical goal pursued
by the Cuvierian discipline.
However, the implications of the description on the transformation were far from only determine
an unquestionable classification of the species. As the subject began to gain public attention, it was that
three problems were involved in this quest: 1) the understanding of the transformation of the Axolotl
under the light of evolutionary theory; 2) the asymmetries and yet the interaction between two theoretical
backgrounds, the one from comparative anatomy, more connected to the domain of natural history, and
that of evolutionism, which pretended to put the phenomenon in a theoretical frame that could include the
reasoning of geological time; and 3) the possibility of the image to act like a evidence or an objective
knowledge operating inside the logic of the theory itself, not only to represent it.
Velasco divided his article in four parts. He first reviewed the work of Cuvier and Duméril, and
the past attempts to define the taxonomy of the species. After that, he described in detail the anatomy of
the specimens he had studied. In the third section of his article, he compared the species with others of the
same genus, and then he proposed a classification for the species discovered, naming it Siredon tigrina. 5
By doing this, the goal was nothing more than to add something new to the problem of the classification
of the species.
In the past, Cuvier himself addressed the topic. He had called into question if the axolotl should
be classified among the batrachians, or as kind of Perennibranchiate (an organism that never loses its
external gills. This matter left the door opened to experiment with the transformation of the animal. At the
interior of the Natural History Society, the value and aims of Velasco’s study were fully understood.
According to one member, the analysis of this new species provided support to the argument that all
axolotls could be classified as ambystomas, that is, as amphibians with the capability to transform into
terrestrial organisms and to breath air outside water, through the use of lungs.6
However, probably not everyone inside the Society thought that the issue was settled with this
new study. Even the logic of Velasco could have been discredited or at least it could have become
controversial under a different sight. Soon after the publication of Velasco’s article, in 1880, M. Pérez,
member of the Society, requested the translation of an article about the axolotl that was written by August

4
Description was the first word he used for the title of his article.
5
Today this species is named after Velasco: Ambystoma Velasci
6
Las cuidadosas observaciones de la Memoria citada [el trabajo de Velasco], darían al parecer un apoyo a la opinión emitida
por algunos zoologistas, de que el género Siredon está lejos de representar una forma verdaderamente autónoma, no
siendo sino el estado larvario de una más avanzada y perfecta; en consecuencia, el batracio en cuestión no formaría parte
del grupo de los ictiodes en que hasta aquí se había colocado, sino en el de los salamandrinos, y a su familia
amblistómidos, género Amblystoma, con el que tiene, al parecer, estrecha afinidad. Manuel M. Villada, “Dictamen acerca del
trabajo anterior”, en La Naturaleza, (primera serie), v. IV, (México: 1879): 234.
4

Weismann, a German zoologist and one of the most relevant figures of Darwinism in Europe, in order to
publish it in the same magazine. The original article had appeared two years before in the Annual Report
of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, in English,7 under the title On the change of the
Mexican Axolotl to an Amblystoma, yet in the background of La Naturaleza, and after Velasco’s study,
the argumentation of Weismann acquired new readings.
Weismann was convinced that the strange transformation of the amphibian carried out great
implications for evolutionary theory, from the perspective of the development of organisms. He even
stated that the case was: “quite peculiarly suited to shed light decisively upon the great alternative, about
which at the present moment the war of opinions is centered, in regard to the doctrine of descent.”8
Before anything else, the most important thing was to prove the real causes of the transformation. Was it
due to an external pressure or was it driven by the organism itself? The second question he signaled was:
what was the extent of the changes the Axolotl suffered? Were those “structural” changes? Were these
enough to consider the Axolotl as two different species before and after its transformation? The answer of
Weismann to these questions had great relevance to define the Axolotl like a sort of natural mistake of
evolution, in his own words, a: “retrogression” in evolution.9
Since Weismann was unable to practice the experiment himself, the work of other scientists,
especially of French scientist Marie Chauvin, provided the necessary support he needed to elaborate his
argument. To the question “how far the transformation goes?”10 he answered that the “sudden change in
structure”11 was far more important than different characteristics “found between the families of the
Urodela”.12 For the German biologist the transformation the Axolotl suffered was significant enough to
consider the metamorphosed individuals not only as another species but even as a different family. But
why consider the transformation as reversion in evolution?
For Weismann, in comparison to other ambystomas, the axolotls of the lakes of Mexico did not
suffer the transformation in their own habitat, they remained as axolotls (at the time defined as Siredon,
the term coined by Cuvier), and they did not become ambystomas (salamanders) unless they were pushed
to it, like it happened in Europe. Compared to other species of salamanders, the anatomy of the axolotl
had to be considered to be in a stage of lower development than other species. Here, Weismann was
thinking through the theory of recapitulation, shortly expressed on the statement that the development of
the individual has to record (recapitulate) the stages of the evolution of the species. That is to say, the
ontogenesis (the individual development) had to follow the phylogenesis (the species development)
according to a “teleological” principle of perfection.13
Recapitulationism was first created by John Hunter (1728-1793) and Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer
(1795-1844), but it was Ernst Haeckel and August Weismann, who were the most important proponents.
Haeckel and Weismann believed to see in the life development of an organism traces of the remote
ancestors of the species. The experimentation with the embryonic development of the specimens became
decisive to prove that. More than that, as Nick Hopwood has showed it, the images Haeckel made himself

7
August Weismann, “Trasformación del ajolote mexicano en Amblistoma” en La Naturaleza, v. 5, Serie I, México, 1880
[impreso en 1882], 31-57
8
Weismann, 357
9
Weismann, 360.
10
Weismann, 357.
11
Weismann, 371.
12
Weismann, 359.
13
Weismann, 366.
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of the embryos and his visual strategies were central to the plausibility of the recapitulation thesis, a
theory discredited nowadays
Under the theory of recapitulation or biogenetic law, the tiny axolotl proved to be an exception
to the perfection pursued by evolution. Under this light, the animal was considered to be in a lower
phyletic stage compared to other species, and it was considered that when the transformation occurred,
the species was returning to a state that it had already reached in the past. This, for Weismann, was like a
reversal on evolution. He considered that:

[…] the Axolotls which today live in the lakes of Mexico were already
Amblystomas a geological (or better a zoological) epoch earlier, but that
through alterations in their conditions of life, they have sunk back to their
earlier stage of the Perennibranquiates.14

As paradoxical as it could appear, the axolotl´s transformation was not upgrading its
evolutionary state (any evolutionary leap could be e achieved so fast), on the contrary, it was going
backwards. This argument was reinforced by the fact that the axolotls could be sexually mature before
becoming ambystomas. That is to say that the larva of the salamander could reproduce even before
achieving its adult stage. Finally, according to the biologist, this is why transformation was not explained
by adaptation, as the changing environmental conditions were the “impulse for the reversion, but no the
true cause of the transformation”.15
This is how Haeckel’s biogenetic law was affected by this case, and here the key issue was to
present the logic of transformation as a great change in the form of the individual, a type of change of the
species, and to think that the transformation was rarely triggered by the species’ own habitat. The refusal
of Axolotl to transform and the transformation by itself, understood from the biogenetic law, drove
evolutionary development in a negative way, on a reversal evolutionary direction. In this sense,
Weismann was right that this sole case could affect the whole validity of the theory, since it put in doubt
the existence of a “phyletic vital energy”, present in every living being, and that was considered a driving
evolutionary force towards higher levels. With the case of the axolotl Weismann was able not only to
defend the existence of that principle, but to demonstrate that it was an exception to the rule.16
After Weismann´s investigation, the studies of Velasco acquired relevance, because one of the
things that was still debated was the anatomical observation of the species. Such changes had led
Weisman to declare that: “they have become entirely different animals”.17 For the German, the
transformation was absolute: “[…] by no means does it merely concern those parts which are directly
affected by the alteration in the mode of life, but that most, if not all, parts of the animal undergo a
transformation […].”18 Neither was able to accept that it was possible understand the general
transformation as correlative changes occasioned first by: “the loss of the gills, and therefore as
correlative changes, what would such a correlation be but the newly christened vital energy above spoken

14
Weismann, 360-361.
15
Weismann, 361.
16
He put the problem in this words: “The question, therefore, seems to stand thus: Either our apprehension up to this time
of the transformation history of the Axolotl as a further development of the species is incorrect, or the existence of a
phyletic vital energy is demonstrated by the case of the Axolotl beyond the possibility of a reputation”. Weismann, 360.
17
Weismann, 356.
18
Weismann, 357.
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of?”.19 It was clear that a problem of perception was at the bottom of the axolotl case. Nonetheless, it is
surprising that Weismann went as far as to declare that, in fact, a problem on observation was the main
difficulty for Recapitulationist theory. Referring to the “fundamental law in the genesis of life”, he
expressed:

It is well known that this is stated in the following proposition: The

Ontogenesis contains in itself the Phylogenesis, more or less contracted, more
or less modified. Although the proposition cannot be rigidly proved, because
we have no means of seeing the phyletic development directly unfolded
before our eyes […]20

With this, the careful observation of the Axolotl´s transformation became essential to solve the
riddle. Also, it showed that the problem concerning visualization and observation was a cornerstone of all
the evolutionist enterprise. Given the emphasis that Haeckel and Weismann placed on images, it is
possible to understand how Neo-Darwinism intended not only to represent new concepts of biology
through images (which was a matter limited to natural history), but to create a visual order of objectivity,
that is, the capability to see evolution. In fact, one issue that was criticized about Haeckel´s work was
that his drawings of embryonic development, although very demonstrative, were not so reliable. The
work of Nick Hopwood and others has demonstrated in what extent Ernst Haeckel quest was primarily a
visual attempt. Hopwood has followed in detail the polemic around Haeckel’s representation of embryos
finding a more complex set of concepts to speak about value and quality of images than only from the
opposition between truth and objectivity. Similarly, the particularity of this case is that it is not clear if
specific practices corresponded to different kinds of knowledge, given that the different perspectives
were using the same parameter of observation.
Things visible for Weismann were not clear to Velasco. An examination at detail of the latter is
needed. Firstly, it cannot be said that the defense of Velasco was primarily a conservative position against
evolution, even if this position had a role in the matter. In second place, after Velasco and Weismann
publications, although nobody picked up the entire implications of the subject, undoubtedly the problem
became much more difficult.
Velasco’s commentaries on Weismann’s article were published in La Naturaleza in 1880. His
text was printed right after Weismann’s article, it was entitled: Anotaciones y observaciones al trabajo
del señor Augusto Weismann, sobre la transformación del ajolote mexicano en Amblistoma (Notes and
observations on the work of Mr. August Weismann on the transformation of the Mexican Axolotl into
Ambystoma). Something to underscore is that Velasco’s main response to Weismann was based on the
category of observation. Commenting his first article Velasco tried to prove there was no reason to think
the Axolotl before and after its transformation was very different, much less to represent different species.
For his original article Velasco prepared three images about the transformation. To see these
after Weismann argumentation prove their full importance. The images were not mere illustrations but
were essential to Velasco’s reasoning. The three plates formed together a frame of evidence. Based on the
images it was possible to provide the clarity ambitioned. In the first image Velasco represented an adult
Axolotl before the transformation. The second one represented an specimen already transformed into a

19
Weismann, 359.
20
Weismann, 373
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salamander. The third one (and the most important for what was at stake) established a comparison
between the two specimens from an anatomical point of view. However, the creation of this “point of
view” was a laborious technical task. (See figures 1, 2 & 3).
For Velasco, comparative anatomy articulated the entire problem. The role of these images was
to show in detail the anatomic structure of the species. In fact, the two first images are an attempt to
determine the external aspect of the animal, and to look the appearance of the metamorphosed
individuals. However the third plate “discovered” the inside, and emphasized the functions of organs.
With the comparison between two stages of change possible by this carefully designed anatomical
perspective it was possible to see that the transformation implied changes only in one aspect: the
respiratory system. The most important change was the use of the lungs and the dismiss of the external
gills (See figure 3). Moreover, the capability of the Axolotl to use lungs was present from the very
beginning. About this matter Velasco said:

If we examine them from the interior we can find two lungs that develop
gradually while becoming adults, these are organized in a way that make them
possible to be used as such and also as air bladders […] Those same organs
have a perfect relation with the arteries and bronchial veins […].21

We can see how close is Velasco argument with the stylistic features of his drawings, later
lithographed. The “perfect relation” he declared was demonstrated by the symmetrical disposition of all
elements, a characteristic that was not depicted in past representations of the amphibian. Comparing
Velasco’s images with others from the same period help us to highlight some characteristics that could
only be achieved by the landscapist. The comparison with the images of Alfredo Dugès, an herpetologist
and maybe the most famous scientific “illustrator” during the late 19th century in Mexico, is especially
worthy. None of the four articles that Dugès elaborated about the Axolotl had anything similar to
Velasco’s strategy of present the process in three steps, neither he made the anatomical comparison
between metamorphosed individuals and those that were not. Lastly, although Dugès drawings had
remarkable qualities, his images were not as rich in detail, they did not present a symmetrical
composition, and, finally, all of his drawings did not represent a process but only a specimen in a random
moment of its development (See figures 4, 5 & 6).
For Velasco, the implication of his observation was clear but the possibility to have “clarity”
was only achievable through his drawing. The elements he used to counter Weismann were the following:
1) He had seen firsthand the axolotls transform; 2) The confirmation that transformation also happened in
Mexico, when Weismann considered the change of the axolotl in its own environment was rare. The latter
was element of weight to believe in the permanence of the creature in a lower phyletic stage. Just as
Weismann, Velasco provided many arguments to demonstrate that the causes of transformation were
intrinsic to the animal. However, Velasco had the intention to prove instead that the organism was already
anatomically fit to perform the change.
For Velasco, Weismann characterization of the change as very deep that it had to be considered a
shift of species (therefore, as an evolutionary leap) was derived from a wrong observation. The

21
Si los examinamos en su interior, les encontraremos dos pulmones que se van gradualmente desarrollando a
medida que avanzan en edad, y están organizados de tal manera, que pueden utilizarlos como tales y también como vejigas
natatorias […] Estos mismos órganos tienen perfecta relación con las arterias y las venas branquiales […]. Velasco, 69.
8

anatomical study demonstrated that main change suffered by the axolotl (the change on the use of lungs
instead of gills) was possible within the limits of the anatomical structure the creature had since the very
beginning. To build this observation Velasco described how axolotls could use at the same time lungs and
gills, this meant that the main organ affected by the process of transformation was always available.22
Moreover, the anatomical comparison in the drawings shouldn’t leave any doubt of this. In his last plate
the view of the changes, which remained only to the specific organs, was striking. The painter concluded
from this point of view, that a change of species was therefore impossible.
In second place, Velasco understanding of Weismann text was that the transformation could be
triggered by the modification of circumstances of living, in the words of the German biologist: the
“morphological adaptation to new conditions of life”,23 (even if according to Weismann argumentation
those circumstances were a secondary force). Velasco took the word “adaptation” in its colloquial
Lamarckian sense as an evolutionary adaptation of an organ, which for the case of the Axolotl was also
impossible. The fact for the painter was that the respiration with lungs began when the amphibian was
still in the water, and to effectuate air-breathing any organ was transformed but instead the “hematosis”
(the blood carry) was relented by the gills and it was began to do by lungs. Even though it was a
misunderstanding of Weismann argument, the complete observation in the Darwinist frame, once under
the light of Velasco’s drawings, seemed to carry a lot of problems.
Velasco conclusion can be viewed not only as a negative to Weismann but also as an statement
on the potential of images to operate in Science. He expressed: “When the only attention is paid to the
observation of animals habits without to relate them to its anatomic constitution is very dangerous to
make any deduction, because these may be distant from Science.”24 Therefore the modifications of the
axolotl could not be explained from any “phyletic energy”:

But those (modifications) that supposedly derive from a phyletic progress,

coming from a vital energy existing in the organism, are not more than a
conjecture, that in short term, are destroyed by new observations, as it
happens from the present example.25

This led to Velasco to discard any evolutionary point of view, and is not the goal of this analysis
to see Velasco’s argument as an useful argument against evolution. In fact the axolotl remained longtime
a riddle in the evolutionary account, as late as in the 1990s it’s change was still discussed as a serious
problem within the synthesis of evolutionary theory. In my point of view, the most important implication
of Velasco’s counterattack was that he challenged the boundaries of the possible epistemological
operation of the image in a disciplinary changing time.
Nobody was right at all. This is a peculiar theoretical vestige in the history of evolutionism.
Nonetheless, he solved a very important issue of the creature’s transformation from the very beginning. In
Paris, Duméril saw axolotls have sexual maturation and descendants without being transformed all that

22
He said: Between the beginning and the end of transformation, they offer a wide scale of its physiognomy, however it
depends on light modifications, since the only crucial one is the loss of branchial apparatus. (Entre el principio y el fin de la
transformación, ofrecen una escala muy variada en su fisonomía; pero se advierte que depende de ligeras modificaciones,
pues la única radical es la pérdida del aparato branquial), Velasco, 75.
23
Weismann, 357. This is what Velasco quoted from Weismann’s article. Velasco, 68.
24
Atendiendo solamente a los hechos que se observan en las costumbres de los animals, sin relacionarlos con su
constitución anatómica, es muy peligroso hacer deducciones, porque ellas pueden alejarse de la ciencia […]. Velasco, 64.
25
Pero las que hacen derivar de una marcha filética, provenida de una energía vital existente en el organismo, no pasa de
conjeturas, que a poco andar, son destruidas por nuevas observaciones, como sucede en el caso presente. Velasco, 83.
9

made more uncertain its classification. The problem about where to classify them slipped to the frame of
Darwinism in the sense described by Weismann, that is under the question on what extent the change of
the axolotl had an evolutionary proportion. Velasco’s drawings not only made possible to support the
definition of the species as an Ambystoma, but even to demonstrate that the amount of change, however
stunning from the outside, did not represent structural changes at the anatomical level, at the same time it
was not a transformation of an organ, rather the disposal of one, and the use of one ready available. In this
way, neither was an adaptation.
To establish this were central the comparative possibilities of drawing line, it was essential to the
explanation of the transformation. The solid rendering of line demonstrated that the two specimens,
before and after alteration, were basically the same, and both they had lungs always disposable at. On the
anatomical level could be stated that anything like a change of species took place. Indeed Velasco
understood the argumentation of the German biologist but he rejected it through a strong concept of
observation long before deployed in science before him. The conclusion Velasco stated at the end of his
text was a powerful objection to the capacities of biology to “see evolution”. He said:

Why we must suppose that in past zoological or geological epochs the

Axolotls were Ambystomas. That, to be truth, shows that the matter of
evolution of species is not seen with the eyes of science, but from a certain
glass with a peculiar color, which colors everything the same manner.26

What does it meant to see with the eyes of science? -Velasco argued-. And why, he was using
these eyes and Weismann was not? This was a concept of observation, clearly not invented by Velasco
nevertheless it was playing a key role.. Undoubtedly, this case shows that the capability observe is not
only a physiological faculty but a matter of skill and education. Any other place offered better chances to
evaluate a good observation than the image. The glue that stuck facts to images was a concept of
observation based on the ability of the observer as a maker. At the end of the day the painter could base
his objections in facts because he had the images in his favor.

Drawing and observation

The concept of observation that Velasco was using was not rooted in the modern notion of
objectivity but in what art techniques were performing for scientific knowledge at least from 17th century.
For the elaboration of his images, especially the anatomical one, he had to make the fine taxidermy of the
animal, secondly to identify and arrange its organs, and finally, no less difficult, to draw them. To achieve
this he used the techniques learned at the Academy. He composed, selected, and carefully designed all the
elements. He was using the ideal, once stated by Goethe, that a good observation was to be carefully
composed from a discrimination of singular views.27
One central thing for the discussion about the meaning of the axolotl’s change, as we have
already seen above, was to define the taxonomy of the species. Velasco’s drawing acted like a proof only

26
¿Por qué suponer que en las épocas zoológicas o geológicas, los ajolotes eran Amblistomas? Tal opinión, a la verdad,
demuestra que la cuestión de la evolución de las especies no se la ve con los ojos de la ciencia, sino a través de un cierto
cristal que tiene cierto color, y que todo lo colora igualmente.

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because it was meant in first place to determine the species. However, after this it become central as an
objection to Weismann theory because of the accuracy invested on determine the species had the potential
to explain the transformation. Paying attention to the iconographical and stylistic traits of Velasco’s last
plate, it can be perceived that some elements were only achievable because of his training as a painter.
One of the first exercises practiced at the Academy was to begin by drawing the lines of a picture, and
only later to add volumes and shadows. In Velasco’s plate the same partition was done not as an exercise
but as a strategy. This was fundamental to build the observation (See figure 7).
The body’s form of the specimens was pictured by continuous lines, thus making visible that the
organism before and after the metamorphose was basically the same in structure. Only the organs, but not
all of them, only the respiratory and circulatory systems, were represented with volume. After doing this,
the organs in question acquired relevance from others and were visually and conceptually isolated from
the general aspect of the body (one of the objections Velasco had made to Weismann was that he had not
regarded the central elements of transformation, and only he focused on little details like the changes on
the teeth).
In Velasco’s plates was visually assembled the significance of comparative anatomy as a factual
comparison between specimens. Nonetheless, it was a comparison that selected, put things aside, and
distinguished on what was important from it was not. The effectivity of this comparison made clear that
the difference between the organisms lied in the changes of respiratory functions. Even from this picture
could be see that the change did not imply an adaptation of an organ into other, The latter one of the
arguments central in Velasco’s objection.
It is possible to say that this was not just a knowledge rendered but a visual knowledge.28 If we
make a deeper analysis of Velasco’s text we shall see that all points he highlighted guide to the
characteristics of the images. It was not a recipe to make scientific images, the knowledge Velasco had at
disposal came from the Academy as well from the School of Medicine. His skills in drawing as well in
taxidermy were collaborating. Taking Velasco´s images like a field of controversy allows rethink the
intellectual process in which observation became and abstract faculty. John Stuart Mill provided this
discussion in his essay On observation and experiment, in 1843:

It would be possible to point out what qualities of mind, and modes of mental
culture, fit a person for being a good observer: that, however, is a question not
of Logic, but of the Theory of Education, in the most enlarged sense of the
term. There is not properly an Art of Observing. There may be rules for
observing. But these, like rules for inventing, are properly instructions for the
preparation of one's own mind; for putting it into the state in which it will be
most fitted to observe, or most likely to invent. They are, therefore, essentially
rules of self-education, which is a different thing from Logic. They do not
teach how to do the thing, but how to make ourselves capable of doing it.29

What comes next in Mill’s text is the possibility to compare observation and experiment as two
different methods to produce knowledge, and without surprise, the weight was given to experimentation
as a better procedure for science, due to the possibility to vary almost all conditions, otherwise impossible
through observation as a mere contemplation, which presupposed a fixed setting. It was the second part of

28
Mathias Bruhn.
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19th century that saw raise experimental and laboratory practices, and among other, the Axolotl played a
primary role on the emergence of experimentation in Zoology.30 Furthermore, in a historical perspective,
the axolotl should not be important only for have been the subject of different scientific representations
but also for being central to reorganize the visual operation of scientific knowledge
What demonstrates the episode is the complex balance established between observation and
experiment, also that it was far from being only an abstract operation. Reading Mill’s equation from the
perspective of Velasco practice confirms the first part of his statement: there was not an art of
observation, as it was a problem of education. In describing the images of the axolotl can be see that the
expertise displayed by the painter at the image making was itself the observation. Secondly, the encounter
of “observation” (now understood from a pictorial point of view) with experiment was far more complex
than what Mill put in abstracto. This crossroad cannot be understood as a categorical opposition but
historically as a cross-borders visual practice. In conclusion, what is visible for us in Velasco’s images is
a not so pure bridge between two genres of visualization, and two supposedly separate regimes between
objectivity and truth.
Also, in the case of axolotls, observation and experiment were not confronted, since Velasco
drawings proved to be more valuable than Weismann experiment descriptions. This episode cannot be
explained with a solid line between old observational science, labeled Natural History, and modern
experimental science practice. In this case the traditional scientific plate was mixed with the logic of
experimentation.
This is significant when we compare visual strategies from Velasco, who used a traditional style
of scientific plate, and the tableaux from Ernst Haeckel in his books Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte
(1868) and Anthropogenie (1874). Haeckel display of embryos on a black background intended to
visualize evolution and to prove the recapitulation by comparing different organisms in different times of
developmental stages (See figures 8 & 9). Through the reticular composition of the tableaux was possible
to arrange and order the anatomical practice with the embryos. However apparently more innovative,
Haeckel’s drawings relied on the tradition of scientific drawing. Wilhelm His, one his major rivals in the
field of embryology, accused him on forgery. For Haeckel, as well for Velasco, arrangement, selection,
and ideal drawing, had the purpose to achieve a strong and clear comparison. In conclusion two
confronted positions converged in the same category of observation, however, from this point of view,
not so much a category but a visual practice.
It is noteworthy that the process to establish the different observations about the axolotl, and the
possibility to use these in productive ways, was not planned according a method. In fact, as Christian
Reiß has remarked, the privileged place of the Axolotl in early experimental scientific cultures was
derived from its possessing in European aquariums, as a result of colonial extraction.31 Axolotls were
maintained first as exotic beings, and with no any other purpose than to see them. This proves a
conjunction between observational and experimental practices, a crossroad in which it is important to
make the question, if observation as a legitimate form of seeing was not only informed by a culture of
images, but as a faculty mixed with image making practices, hand skill, and technological reproduction.

30
Christian ReiB
31
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How close images remained in a variety of disciplines where they were apparently expelled, may be one
of the reasons why science is still today embedded in all kind of visual objects.
Finally, this visual agency helps to understand the interaction between different realms of
knowledge, instead of simply consider science as a progressive overcome. Velasco’s answer to
Weismann proved an understanding, and even a position, on the problem outside the theory of evolution.
At this undertaking it was essential the image as a channel of communication. This was possible by the
expertise of Velasco as an image-maker, originated in his training as landscape painter and academic
draftsman. This know-how had at least evolved since 17th century, and it was labeled at the end of the
19th century as “amateurism”. This hybrid profile allowed him not to format his own mind to do
truthfully observations but make him capable to deploy his skills in a strategic way to achieve something
new.

Figure 1. José María Velasco. 1st plate, La Naturaleza, v. IV, lámina VII, Litografía de Murguía, 14 x 21 cm,
(Fondo histórico del Instituto de Geología).
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Figure 2. José María Velasco. 2d plate, La Naturaleza, v. IV, lámina VII, Litografía de Murguía, 14 x 21 cm,
(Fondo histórico del Instituto de Geología).

Figure 3. José María Velasco. 3d plate, La Naturaleza, v. IV, lámina VII, Litografía de Murguía, 14 x 21 cm,
(Fondo histórico del Instituto de Geología).
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Figure 4. Alfredo Dugès, “Una especie de ajolote en Pázcuaro” La Naturaleza, serie I, v. I, 1870, Litography of
Murguía, 14 x 21 cm, (Fondo histórico del Instituto de Geología).

Figure 5. Alfredo Dugès, “Ambystoma Altamirani”, La Naturaleza, litography, 1895.

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Figure 6. Alfredo Dugès, “Amblystoma Altamirani”, La Naturaleza, 1901, plate XXXVI.

Figure 7. José María Velasco. Study, 1858, Museo José María Velasco, Toluca.
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Figure 8.Original drawings for the work: Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte (Berlin: Reimer, 1868), ca. 8 x 10 cm. Is possible to
read in the label: “Nat. Schöpfgsg. Tafel II u. III” in file “Natürl. Schöpfungsgeschichte,” (Ernst-Haeckel-Haus, Jena: B74.),
(Hopwood, p. 271).

Figure 9. Comparison of vertebrate embryos in different stages of development” Anthropogenie (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1874), plates
IV–V. Litography J. G. Bach de Leipzig following Haeckel’s drawings.