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Paper Zoo: 500 Years of Animals in Art [Kõva köide]

4.24/5 (75 hinnangut Goodreads-ist)
  • Formaat: Hardback, 256 pages, kõrgus x laius x paksus: 282x224x33 mm, kaal: 1542 g, Illustrations, unspecified
  • Ilmumisaeg: 08-Mar-2017
  • Kirjastus: University of Chicago Press
  • ISBN-10: 022644712X
  • ISBN-13: 9780226447124
Teised raamatud teemal:
Paper Zoo: 500 Years of Animals in ArtSuurem pilt
  • Formaat: Hardback, 256 pages, kõrgus x laius x paksus: 282x224x33 mm, kaal: 1542 g, Illustrations, unspecified
  • Ilmumisaeg: 08-Mar-2017
  • Kirjastus: University of Chicago Press
  • ISBN-10: 022644712X
  • ISBN-13: 9780226447124
Teised raamatud teemal:
Püsilink: https://www.kriso.ee/db/9780226447124.html
Märksõnad:
As children, our first encounters with the world’s animals do not arise during expeditions through faraway jungles or on perilous mountain treks. Instead, we meet these creatures between the pages of a book, on the floor of an obliging library. Down through the centuries, illustrated books have served as our paper zoos, both documenting the world’s extraordinary wildlife in exquisite detail and revealing, in hindsight, how our relationship to and understanding of these animals have evolved over time.

In this stunning book, historian of science Charlotte Sleigh draws on the ultimate bibliophile’s menagerie—the collections of the British Library—to present a lavishly illustrated homage to this historical collaboration between art and science. Gathering together a breathtaking range of nature illustrations from manuscripts, prints, drawings, and rare printed books from across the world, Sleigh brings us face to face (or face to tentacle) with images of butterflies, beetles, and spiders, of shells, fish, and coral polyps. Organized into four themed sections—exotic, native, domestic, and paradoxical—the images introduce us to some of the world’s most renowned natural history illustrators, from John James Audubon to Mark Catesby and Ernst Haeckel, as well as to lesser-known artists. In her accompanying text, Sleigh traces the story of the art of natural history from the Renaissance through the great age of exploration and into the nineteenth century, offering insight into the changing connections between the natural and human worlds.

But the story does not end there. From caterpillars to crabs, langurs to dugongs, stick insects to Old English pigs; from the sinuous tail feathers of birds of paradise to the lime-green wings of New Zealand’s enormous flightless parrot, the kakapo; from the crenellated plates of a tortoise’s shell to imagined likenesses of unicorns, mermaids, and dinosaurs, the story continues in this book. It is a Paper Zoo for all time.


For many, their first experience of the natural world is in the pages of books and in library collections--a Paper Zoo. This stunning book gathers together a wide range of beautiful nature illustrations from the British Library’s collections, including manuscripts, prints and drawings, and rare printed books, and featuring items from all around the world. With striking images of butterflies, beetles, spiders, animals, shells, fish and birds, the pages bring readers into contact with some of the world’s most renowned natural history illustrators, such as Audubon and Catesby, and on expeditions to discover the lesser known rare finds as well. The text traces the story of the art of natural history from the Renaissance through the great age of exploration to the 19th century, to demonstrate how the collaboration between the fields of art and science has rendered such exquisite forms. The plates, all taken from books, are organized into several themed sections, though not on strict taxonomic grounds, but rather on broader themes of exotic, native, domestic, and paradoxical (with reference to what the species were at that time for what is native now may well once have been exotic).

Arvustused

"Erudite and eloquent."--P. D. Smith "Guardian, on Sleigh's "Literature and Science" " "Engaging."--Barbara J. King "Times Literary Supplement, on Sleigh's "Frog" " "Exploring five hundred years of animals in art and featuring the exotic, native, domestic, and paradoxical, Sleigh's splendid book is alive with marvelous images, accompanied by a superb text."--Eileen Battersby "Irish Times, favourite nonfiction of the year " "Precise and witty."--American Scientist, on Sleigh's "Six Legs Better" "Stylish . . . and informative."--Times, on Sleigh's "Ant" "Fascinating. . . . Provocative, complex."--Times Literary Supplement, on Sleigh's "Six Legs Better" "Impressive. . . . Illuminating."--Independent, on Sleigh's "Ant" "[ Sleigh] gathers five hundred years' worth of beautiful natural history illustrations to explore the relationship between art and science."--Science News "One of the top five illustrated books of the year. The Paper Zoo focuses firmly on the planet's biodiverse past, rummaging through the British Library's wealth of natural history illustrations spanning five hundred years. Science historian Sleigh leads us through an ark of beasts from the exotic to the 'paradoxical', limned by greats of scientific illustration. Robert Hooke's eighteenth-century microscopic menagerie of drone flies and lice jostle with natural historian John Ray's Durer-like renderings of fish from the 1680s. The nineteenth-century art ranges further South; my favourite is an anonymous double portrait of langurs (one black, one white) staring sagely out in mid-snack."--Barbara Kiser "Nature " "Before the Nature Channel, before camera safaris, even before Audubon, the only way to discover the beasts of foreign lands was through illustrations. In her scholarly and sprightly Paper Zoo, historian of science Sleigh tracks pictures of animals from medieval bestiaries to early twentieth-century school posters. Along the way she uncovers some fascinating stories, like that of Maria Sybilla Merian, who traveled to Suriname in 1699 and experimented with trompe l'oeil, producing the 'earliest masterpiece of coloured natural history.' There are plenty of masterpieces here, from gorgeous illustrations of sea anemones and delightful black and white monkeys to 'borderline animals' (half-imaginary, half real) like a many-legged stick insect and a 'Domesticated Female Orang Outang' wearing a jaunty striped kerchief."--Ann Landi "Wall Street Journal " "Pictures can be sources of knowledge. Without them, indeed, some studies would be difficult or impossible to pursue. How could you define and describe innumerable types of animals, birds, and insects using words alone? Sleigh, a historian of science, takes zoological illustration as her theme in The Paper Zoo. Some examples are as cute as the title might suggest. Others, such as Robert Hooke's drawing of a louse clinging to a human hair seen through a microscope in 1665, distinctly less so. But although accuracy, not beauty, was their point, many are nonetheless beautiful."--Martin Gayford "Spectator, best art books of the year "

Introduction 7(36)
Exotic
43(72)
Native
115(58)
Domestic
173(38)
Paradoxical
211(41)
Notes 252(1)
Author's Note 253(1)
Further Reading 253(1)
Index 254
Charlotte Sleigh is professor of science humanities at the University of Kent. She is the author of Ant, Six Legs Better: A Cultural History of Myrmecology, Literature and Science, and Frog.