Project GutenbergThe Female Artist Who Showed How Plants and Insects Relate
Her illustrations had a lasting impact on future botanical artists
By Alice Alder
Entomology at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=entomology
German entomologist, naturalist and scientific illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian died #OTD in 1717.
Her pioneering research in illustrating and describing the various stages of development, from egg to larva to pupa and finally to adult, dispelled the notion of spontaneous generation and established the idea that insects undergo distinct and predictable life cycles.
Where the atomic nuclei are: Maurice Sendak, physics illustrator
The first credited work of the famed children’s book author was a set of illustrations in a 1947 popular-science book about nuclear physics.
Original files are available at Hathi Thrust:
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000672307
Where the atomic nuclei are: Maurice Sendak, physics illustrator
In this guest post, originally published in Physics Today magazine, historian Ryan Dahn highlights the story behind the first book children's author Maurice Sendak ever illustrated, 1947 popular-science book titled Atomics for the Millions by Hyman Ruchlis and coauthor Maxwell Leigh Eidinoff, a copy of which is held at the AIP Niels Bohr Library & Archives.
Hotspur🏳️🌈🇺🇦"Aurora Borealis," Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, 1881-82.
Trouvelot (1827-95) has a mixed legacy. Born in France, he and his family fled to the US after a coup by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte in 1851. He was earning a living as an artist and illustrator, but also had an interest in entomology. He was studying moths and had imported eggs of the spongy moth to his home...which proceeded to escape and devastate the hardwood forests here. Spongy moths (formerly called gypsy moths) are still a problem today and the story is an early example of how invasive species get introduced.
After that debacle, he switched to astronomy, and soon joined the staff of Harvard as their resident astronomical illustrator, and worked at the US Naval Observatory, making early observations of sunspots. He returned to France in '82, where he spent the rest of his life.
His illustrations are still well regarded today and have a decorative power of their own; I had a few masks with his illustrations during COVID.
From the collection of the New York Public Library.
#Art #ScientificArt #scientific_illustrators #AuroraBorealis #EtienneLeopoldTrouvelot #Astronomy
Science Illustration: A Creative Door for Early Women in Science.
At the dawn of the 1900s, science remained a domain largely inaccessible to women. Despite societal constraints, a select group of pioneering women found a path to contribute to science through illustration.
By Raven Capone Benko via @SIAmericanWomen
https://womenshistory.si.edu/blog/science-illustration-creative-door-early-women-science
Science Illustration: A Creative Door for Early Women in Science
Learn about Violet Dandridge, Aime Motter Awl, Carolyn Bartlett Gast, and Marilyn Schotte: four women from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Department of Invertebrate Zoology who broke through the gendered barriers of science and made significant contributions to scientific discovery through art.