My recent trip to Washington DC was triggered by an interesting day of free lectures. Mark Catesby was a scientist and an artist who published one of the first books about plants and animals of North America, Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, starting in 1729. As it turns out, he was heavily influenced by another favorite illustrator of mine, Maria Sybilla Merian--no wonder I like his work so much.
I met up with my wonderful friend Ikumi Kayama for the day of lectures at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The topics included techniques for drawing, printing, bookbinding, and self-publishing in the 18th century, as well as the science behind the plants and animals depicted in Catesby's amazing two-volume work.
It was eye-opening to learn that after 4 years of gathering research, the book itself took 20 years for Catesby to produce. He didn't have funds to hire a professional engraver, so he engraved all the plates and hand-painted them each afterwards.
We were entertained by some of the strange myths that other science books of the time were publishing about wildlife in North America: the idea that turtles can hunt by slamming shut their carapaces on neck of a snake to chop its head off; or the idea that rattlesnakes can hypnotize a squirrel and make it run down a tree right into the snake's mouth, for example.
We were thrilled to look at an actual copy of one of the original books after the lectures wrapped up. A very exciting day for me, all told!
If you need to follow up your studies w/o going to the east coast, CAS has both volumes of the Catesby in the rare book room. All you need is to make an appointment w/me in advance (cuz we need 2 people to access the rbr)
ReplyDeleteOooh. Librarians are powerful, powerful folks! I will have to keep that in mind next time I am in the San Fran area...oooooh.
Deletep.s. i LOVE the white pencil sketches on the black paper!! I am both reminded of chalk boards and photo negatives :)
ReplyDeleteChalkboards! Great analogy! I packed two sketchbooks: black paper for Monumental Statues etc, and watercolor paper. It seemed more economical to write and sketch fast on the black paper, since I've been messing with that book on and off for 10 years now and never seem to use it often! But it does give a zing to the notes, no?
DeleteI love that you are drawing with white pencil on black. One of my favorite 8th grade art lessons used to be to set up a still life of marshmallows on a white paper plate and then have my students draw with white on black paper. A real mind blowing experience for some..."what, I have to make it whiter to make it a darker shadow"...fun altered thinking in an art room!
ReplyDeleteThat's a delightful exercise, still life with marshmallows! Love it. I don't always find a good use for the black paper--some things just don't fit that format neatly--but I figured there would be enough Monumental Stuff in DC that I could put it to use. And sure enough, I finally finished the book!
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