Synopses & Reviews
From the fifteenth century onwards, as European explorers sailed forth on grand voyages of discovery, their encounters with exotic plants and animals fanned intense scientific interest. Scholars began to examine nature with fresh eyes, and pioneering artists transformed the way nature was seen and understood. In Amazing Rare Things, renowned naturalist and documentary-maker David Attenborough joins with expert colleagues to explore how artists portrayed the natural world during this era of burgeoning scientific interest.
The book focuses on an exquisite selection of natural history drawings and watercolors by Leonardo da Vinci, Alexander Marshal, Maria Sibylla Merian, and Mark Catesby, and from the collection of Cassiano dal Pozzoworks all held in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Attenborough and his coauthors offer lucid commentary on topics ranging from the 30,000-year history of human drawings of the natural world, to Leonardos fascination with natural processes, to Catesbys groundbreaking studies that introduced Europeans to the plants and animals of North America. With 160 full color illustrations, this beautiful book will appeal to readers with interests that extend from art and science to history and nature.
Review
"Scientists often wonder who first illustrated biodiversity, and I imagine that artists often wonder about the chronology and development of accurate depictions of natural history. Amazing Rare Things is a welcome and long overdue integration of art and science.”Margaret D. Lowman, author of Its a Jungle Up There and Life in the Treetops -- Bennett Gordon - Utne Reader
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'\"A major achievement. . . . An extravagant celebration of sense and sensation.\"Edward Rothstein, New York Times -- Audra Simpson - Journal of Asian Studies'
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'“As this ambitious and generously illustrated study shows, Darwins theories unleashed a spate of artistic activity in depicting humankind and the glories of the human world. A veritable ethnographic museum in a book.” The Times -- Edward Rothstein - New York Times'
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'\"Lavishly produced. . . . Much more than a catalogue. It offers thoughtful explorations of many of the ideas provocatively raised by the displays themselves.\"Harriet Ritvo, Science -- The Times'
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'\"Handsome, sumptuously illustrated . . . of interest to specialists and laypeople alike.\"--Jon Lackman,
Art History Newsletter -- Dan Edelstein - American Historical Review'
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“This attractive and readable book makes a valuable contribution to Darwin studies--precise, historically accurate, provided here in an excellent translation, and on a subject that is bound to fascinate.”--Janet Browne, author of
Charles Darwin: Voyaging and
Charles Darwin: The Power of Place -- Ethan Porter - Wilson Quarterly
Review
“Each chapter richly details not only Darwins preoccupation with visual depictions, but also his deep involvement in the networks of zoologists, collaborators, draftsmen, artists, and others involved in the production of the visual images he seeks and struggles with. As such, the work explores the relationship between science, art, and representation; contemporary British scientific and popular culture; and the varied communities and networks with which Darwin interacts during various periods of his scientific life.”Mark B. Adams, University of Pennsylvania -- Janet Browne
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". . . a very satisfying book and a worthy addition to the Darwinian literature."--
The Quarterly Review of Biology -- Mark B. Adams
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“Knowing Nature is quite the looker . . . [with] hundreds of drawings and paintings . . . [and] each chapter is a surprisingly lively essay.”—Patrick Rapa, City Paper (Philadelphia)
Synopsis
The life and work of Thomas Eakins (18441916), Americas most celebrated portrait painter, have long generated heated controversy. In this fresh and deeply researched interpretation of the artist, Amy Werbel sets Eakins in the context of Philadelphias scientific, medical, and artistic communities of the 19th century, and considers his provocative behavior in the light of other well-publicized scandals of his era. This illuminating perspective provides a rich, alternative account of Eakins and casts entirely new light on his renowned paintings.
Eakins modern critics have described his artistic motivations and beliefs as prurient and even pathological. Werbel challenges these interpretations and suggests instead that Eakins is best understood as an artist and teacher devoted to an exacting and profound study of the human body, to equality for women and men, and to middle-class meritocratic and Quaker philosophies.
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A gorgeously illustrated volume devoted to the natural history drawings and watercolors of Leonardo da Vinci and other outstanding artists of the Age of Discovery\n
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Synopsis
Now available in paperbackMaking knowledge visible” is how one 16th-century naturalist described the work of the illustrator of botanical treatises. His words reflected the growing role played by illustrators at a time when the study of nature had been assuming new authority in the world of learning. An absorbing exploration of the relationship between image and text, this collection considers how both aided the development and transmission of scientific knowledge.
Presenting images found throughout Europe in works on natural history, medicine, botany, horticulture, and garden design, and studies of insects, birds, and animals, the contributors emphasize their artistic as well as scientific values. Illustrators are shown to have been both artists and either naturalists or gardeners, bringing to their work aesthetic judgment and empirical observation. Their fascinating images receive a fresh, wide-ranging analysis that covers such topics as innovation, patronage, readership, reception, technologies of production, and the relationship between the fine arts and scientific depictions of nature.
Synopsis
Charles Darwins revolutionary theories of evolution and natural selection have not only had a profound influence on the fields of biology and natural history, but also provided fertile territory for the creative imagination. This lavishly illustrated book accompanies an exhibition organized by the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, in association with the Yale Center for British Art, that will coincide with the global celebration of the bicentenary of Darwins birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859).
The essays in this exceptionally wide-ranging book examine both the profound impact that Darwins ideas had on European and American artists and the ways in which his theories were influenced by the visual traditions he inherited. In works by artists as diverse as Church, Landseer, Liljefors, Heade, Redon, Cézanne, Lear, Tissot, Rossetti, and Monet, from imaginative projections of prehistory to troubled evocations of a life dominated by the struggle for existence, Darwins sense of the interplay of all living things and his response to the beauties of the natural world proved inspirational.
Synopsis
At the age of seventy-two, Mary Delany, née Mary Granville (1700-1788), embarked upon a series of nearly a thousand botanical collages, or paper mosaics,” which would prove to be the crowning achievement of her rich creative life. These delicate hand-cut floral designs, made by a method of Mrs. Delanys own invention, vie with the finest botanical works of her time. More than two centuries later her extraordinary work continues to inspire.
Although best known for these collages, Mrs. Delany was also an amateur artist, woman of fashion, and commentator on life and society in 18th-century England and Ireland. Her prolific craft activities not only served to cement personal bonds of friendship, but also allowed her to negotiate the interconnecting artistic, aristocratic, and scientific networks that surrounded her. This ambitious and groundbreaking book, the first to survey the full range of Mrs. Delanys creative endeavors, reveals the complexity of her engagement with natural science, fashion, and design.
Synopsis
In this first-ever examination of Charles Darwins sketches, drawings, and illustrations, Julia Voss presents the history of evolutionary theory told in pictures. Darwin had a life-long interest in pictorial representations of nature, sketching out his evolutionary theory and related ideas for over forty years. Voss details the pictorial history of Darwins theory of evolution, starting with his notebook sketches of 1837 and ending with the illustrations in The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). These images were profoundly significant for Darwins long-term argument for evolutionary theory; each characterizes a different aspect of his relationship with the visual information and constitutes what can be called an icon” of evolution. Voss shows how Darwin thought with his eyes” and how his pictorial representations and the development and popularization of the theory of evolution were vitally interconnected.Voss explores four of Darwins images in depth, and weaves about them a story on the development and presentation of Darwins theory, in which she also addresses the history of Victorian illustration, the role of images in science, the technologies of production, and the relationship between specimen, words, and images.
Synopsis
Philadelphia developed the most active scientific community in early America, fostering an influential group of naturalist-artists, including William Bartram, Charles Willson Peale, Alexander Wilson, and John James Audubon, whose work has been addressed by many monographic studies. However, as the groundbreaking essays in Knowing Nature demonstrate, the examination of nature stimulated not only forms of artistic production traditionally associated with scientific practice of the day, but processes of making not ordinarily linked to science. The often surprisingly intimate connections between and among these creative activities and the objects they engendered are explored through the essays in this book, challenging the hierarchy that is generally assumed to have been at play in the study of nature, from the natural sciences through the fine and decorative arts, and, ultimately, popular and material culture. Indeed, the many ways in which the means of knowing nature were reversed—in which artistic and artisanal culture informed scientific interpretations of the natural world—forms a central theme of this pioneering publication.
About the Author
David Attenboroughs distinguished career in broadcasting spans more than 50 years. A pioneer of the nature documentary, he has written and presented nine major television series on virtually every aspect of life on Earth, including most recently Planet Earth. He was knighted in 1985, was created a member of the Order of Merit in 2005, and has received many other awards and honorary degrees. Susan Owens is assistant curator of the Print Room at Windsor Castle. She curated the recent exhibit, Watercolours and Drawings from the Collection of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Martin Clayton is deputy curator of the Print Room at Windsor Castle. He has published extensively on Renaissance art. Rea Alexandratos is coordinator of the Dal Pozzo Catalogue Project.