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Scientific Illustration in the Eighteenth Century
Abstract
Illustration emerges from complex and diverse motives. The portrayal of an objective reality may seem to lie at its heart, but there are other subtle factors at work. Preconception guides many an illustrator's hand. A wish to project known realities onto nascent concepts distorts reality in its own ways, and the process of transmuting the subtle realism of nature into an engraver's line imposes constraints and conventions of its own. There is a general principle in artwork, often unrecognised: the culture of each era dictates its own arbitrary realities. Our experience of this is largely intuitive, but it explains why a specific image (a saint from a thirteenth-century psalter, or the countenance of the Statue of Liberty) is easier to relate to the time it was produced, than to the identity of the artist or the name of the subject. In just this way, a scientific illustration is a mirror of contemporaneous preoccupations, and a clue to current prejudice. It is more than a didactic symbol. Some illustrations create, and then perpetuate, icons which transcend reality and provide a synthesized convention which passes from one generation of books to the next. These icons are created for textbooks, and they populate their pages as decorative features which do little to reveal reality. FOONOTE Discussions on the relationship between reality and interpretation are found in: Ford, Brian J., Images of Science, a History of Scientific Illustration, London: British Library; New York: Oxford University Press (1992); also in the author's Images Imperfect, the Legacy of Scientific Illustration, Yearbook of Science and the Future: 134-157, Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica (1996). Early in the century, François Legaut's Voyages et Aventures (1708) featured a rhinoceros with a second horn projecting forward from its brow. This structure is never found in life. Why should it feature in an eighteenth-century illustrated textbook? The first published study of a rhinoceros (made by Albrecht Dürer in 1515), though powerful and realistic, boasts a small secondary horn on the shoulders, which projects forward. The image was repeatedly plagiarised and -with each generation of copying -this imaginary forward-projecting second horn increased in size. By the time it was included in Legaut's book the imaginary horn was equal in size to the real one.
... In the course of the 17th century wood engraving was developed as a refinement of wood-cutting that allowed to obtain a multitude of fine lines and thus subtle gradations of grey tones. Engraving a figure de novo was a laborious work, and it was thus not uncommon to re-engrave already published illustrations (Ford 2003). ...
... These species are figured as dorsal and ventral views of the shell placed on its apex, their aperture plane perpendicular to the viewer. This upside-down illustration of shells was not uncommon in those days, particularly in France (Ford 2003). For Gualtieri the shape and position of the aperture was part of his classification system, hence the illustration of the aperture in the position as we use them till today. ...
The first book illustrating a Neotropical land shell appeared in 1684, with a figure of Liguus virgineus (linnaeus 1758). An iconography for this genus is presented, describing early pre-and post-Linnean figures from 17th and 18th century shell books, with a briefer discussion of later illustrations through the early twentieth century. Also the development until the first photographs in the early 20th century is briefly discussed. © E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (Nägele u. Obermiller).
... Comparing the differences in the drawings illustrates how seeing and drawing Karabel were inevitably associated with the identity attached to it. From the strong Egyptian influence on Texier's drawing to Landron's more naturalistic rendering, the illustrations reflect contemporary preoccupations (Ford, 2003), with meaning, aim, and therefore materialization changing with time. Initial recording necessitated selecting and accentuating the primary characteristics (Moser, 2014(Moser, , 2015(Moser, : 1280. ...
This article examines the processes involved in materializing the past. The recording of archaeological objects plays a pivotal role in establishing artefacts as valuable data that can be categorized, classified, and analysed to turn into historical narratives. It contributes significantly to shaping our understanding of the past: while conveying information about the objects themselves, this documentation inherently captures the subjective context of its recording and continues to influence our interpretations. In this article, both objective details and subjective conceptions are analysed from the records (drawings, photographs, reports) made at the rock figure of Karabel (Turkey), a monumental bas-relief discovered by European explorers in the 1830s. The author uses Karabel's diverse and controversial interpretations to examine how knowledge and ideas about the past evolve. To counterbalance the conventional linear interpretation of the past, he offers some insights into non-academic aspects of the monument.
... There is a great historical tradition of scientific illustration linked to research. Back in the eighteenth century, some notion of realism was the declared aim in scientific imagery (Ford, 2003), whether for analytic or dissemination purposes. A good illustration can lead to a better understanding or facilitate the abstraction of concepts, facilitating new ideas or points of view. ...
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused an overload of scientific information in the media, sometimes including misinformation or the dissemination of false content. This so-called infodemic, at a low intensity level, is also manifested in the spread of scientific and medical illustrations of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Since the beginning of the pandemic, images of other long-known viruses, sometimes imaginary reconstructions, or viruses that cause diseases in other, non-human species have been attributed to SARS-CoV-2. In a certain way, one can thus speak of a case of an imagedemic based on an alteration of the rigour and truth of informative illustrations in the media. Images that illustrate informative data have an influence on the emotional perception of viewers and the formation of attitudes and behaviours in the face of the current or future pandemics. So, image disinformation should be avoided, making it desirable that journalists confirm the validity of scientific images with the same rigour that they apply to any other type of image, instead of working with fake, made-up images from photo stock services. At a time when scientific illustration has great didactic power, high-quality information must be illustrated using images that are as accurate and real as possible, as for any other news topic. It is fundamental that informative illustrations about COVID-19 used in the media are scientifically rigorous.
El Diseño cohabita con otras disciplinas, no necesaria pero sí frecuentemente. En el caso de este proyecto para la Facultad de Ingeniería de la UNLP, el uso de la ilustración resultó una herramienta indispensable. Las ilustraciones mantuvieron la misma finalidad durante gran parte de nuestra historia y hasta el día de hoy: acompañar, complementar, documentar, narrar o recrear todo tipo de texto escrito, como así también, transmitir un mensaje. Una ilustración se adapta a las necesidades y pautas del proyecto en el cual se la utiliza.
This paper examines the history of discovery, early research and description of Anabas testudineus (Bloch, 1792) (Anabantidae), an amphibious fish from southern India that was said to climb palm trees and so has been dubbed the “climbing perch”. Amphibious fishes constitute one of the most unusual groups of aquatic creatures since they can spend part of their life in terrestrial habitats. The first reports of such fishes date back to Antiquity, but with the onset of the Age of Discovery, naturalists were able to find actual examples of tropical amphibious fishes and send preserved specimens to Europe. A fish which could move overland and was rumoured to clamber up tree trunks became known to European naturalists through the efforts of a variety of people. Many of them were amateur naturalists whose main activities included politics, commerce and missionary work. The species was described by Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799) in 1792, but this would not have been possible if the Reverend Christoph Samuel John (1747–1813) had not obtained specimens in India and sent them to Berlin. Around the same time, Lieutenant Dagobert Karl Daldorff (fl. 1790–1802) documented the unusual amphibious behaviour of this fish. Thanks to others, Anabas testudineus was illustrated (albeit inaccurately) and the first scientific description published.
In this paper, I investigate how eighteenth-century antiquarians engaged with the remains of Roman bath buildings in Britain and discuss their multifaceted attitude towards the ancient practice of bathing, with a focus on the city of Bath. I also examine the interests and priorities of Georgian scholars in studying Roman baths and their structure, highlighting their sometimes uncritical use of classical sources and tracking the origins of their misconceptions regarding the components and function of these facilities. Finally, I briefly address the elusive socio-cultural legacy of Roman baths and bathing in eighteenth-century Britain, stressing influences and differences in practice and architecture.
Herbaria in a form of a codex, which have been made since 16th century, nowadays are a very interesting and heterogeneous group of objects. They were usually made by botanists as specific kind of a scientific documentaction used for a scientific research, for the comparitioning the plant speciments and for the teaching and learning purposes. Becouse of the presence of the dried plants they are a great challenge for the conservatores of paper objects. This paper presents informations about the history and technology of the herbaria and about their preservation and conservation issues.
In this article, I will attempt to provide a historical case study, I suggest that the demarcation between perception and how a figure is ‘seen’ is the process of perpetual filtering between the levels of sensation and perception. I argue that this filtering operates through the basic visual principles, which may vary and have divergent functions in different paradigms. This historical case study will focus on the fifty-six plates featured in the influential work of the London surgeon William Cheselden, to reveal the paradigm-based filtering in these prints by arguing that the sense data is organized in the simplest manner to view figures in their unity. Thus, I will focus on the visual principle of simplicity, which features the patterns of similarity, contrast and symmetry. An analysis of Cheselden’s usage of these patterns will demonstrate that he aims to show that every bone in human body is united to one another, which forms an organizing structure. I will conclude that these visual principles were used by Chelselden to achieve perfection by conveying right proportions and the correct number of scales of human body since his observations was laden with Newtonian paradigm. Finally, I will compare this usage to that of Ibn Sina’s, to disclose the paradigm-ladenness of scientific observations.
The Physiocrats believed that wealth came exclusively from the land, that nature was fecund and man could harness its reproductive forces. Capital investments in agriculture and hard work would create profits that circulated to other sectors and supported all social institutions. Physiocracy, which originated in late eighteenth-century France, is therefore widely considered a forerunner of modern economic theory. The Physiocrats and the World of the Enlightenment places the Physiocrats in context by inscribing economic theory within broader Enlightenment culture. Liana Vardi discusses three theorists – Francois Quesnay; Victor Riquetti, marquis de Mirabeau; and Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours – and shows how their understanding of mental processes, science, politics, and the arts influenced their individual approach to economic writing. The difficulty in explaining the doctrine, combined with the expectation that the public would be persuaded by its arguments, mired physiocracy in endless contradictions. This work offers a framework for understanding physiocratic theory and its complicated relation to modern economics.
This paper explores the endeavours of José Celestino Mutis before and during his directorship of the Royal Botanical Expedition to the New Kingdom of Granada (1783-1816). Firstly, it will consider various aspects of Mutis’ activities as a naturalist and entrepreneur, in particular his efforts to promote the identification and commercial exploitation of three natural products associated with the Viceroyalty of New Granada: quina, cinnamon, and tea. Secondly, the paper will focus on the complex dynamics of the expedition’s artistic workshop, whose outcome was the monumental compilation of botanical illustrations known as the Flora de Bogotá. The overall aim is to offer a reflection on the challenges posed by the practices of accumulation and management in the context of a scientific expedition inspired by the new policies of the reformist movement in Spain and designed to make profit out of the nature of the New World and its knowledge.
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