wonders of the natural world, illustrated

la lechera i'll let you in on a secret: most of the ones i posted itt are from etsy (lotta ppl buy an old book then sell the individual pages)

are fucking kidding me?

whoa i was so shocked i forgot the you

i had no idea
i've been collecting these books for no apparent reason aside from cutting the shit out of them for mixtape/cd covers, birthday cards and shit like that. just like personal stuff, things i gave away mostly.

it never would have occurred to me to sell individual pages

skin with sun damage
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7066/6799445772_34daa8447f_z.jpg

skin after it has been burned by the sun
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7042/6799446450_c446604851_z.jpg

the motherlode http://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/

I'm not quite so keen on the birds and butterflies in stuff like this, but holy hell I love the aquatic pictures here.

i am in love with this set of plants http://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/sets/72157627368819427/

and pollen! http://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/sets/72157629679293276/
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7079/7176491034_b4207e6313_z.jpg

Wowwwwww

nice try on the flyer, but i'm gonna say thumbs down on this use of scientific illustrations

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/s720x720/268602_10100151255779278_705925032_n.jpg

Is that one of Ernst Haeckel's illustrations?

That's what I was wondering. I've been trying to figure out if Ernst Haeckel illustrations are like (a) ~a tumblr/hipster thing~, (b) reviled because of his questionable science/eugenics, or (3) well regarded, but neither of the other two options apply atm.

If it's his, it's not one of the most spectacular ones, that's for sure.

let me urge anyone who has any interest in looking at images that are scientifically, artistically, and historically engaging to go straight to

the motherlode http://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/

― nicest bitch of poster (La Lechera), Sunday, August 5, 2012 9:45 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag

Having a look, i think it is his but, as you say, not one of his best.

I think it's probably closer to (3) at the moment. There are two collections of his work published by Prestel and i guess that has given him more of an influence on the fine arts / art student world without necessarily being a hipster touchstone.

Interesting. I don't really run in those circles, so I have no idea what is au courant or whatever term people use these days. Do you think this poster is a sign that it's becoming a) ?

I am totally obsessed with biodivlibrary. seriously, there's so much there to look at that i am taking it slowly and in measured doses. one collection at a time, one set at a time. i am starting with "book of the week" because there's so much variety. the insect section is gonna be a little scary, maybe.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8006/7698611570_03559a978d_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7140/7698600780_a1ec813e85_z.jpg
n165_w1150 by BioDivLibrary, on Flickr

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8014/7698624910_c03b470e60_z.jpg
n359_w1150 by BioDivLibrary, on Flickr

It could be a sign it's becoming closer to (a). There's definitely a growing interest in scientific arcana, cabinets of curiosities, etc at the moment. Part of that's being driven by publishing houses like Taschen and Prestel or established artists like Mark Dion but the internet is fuelling it as well. There are countless blogs with pictures from Victorian-era museums, old scientific books, etc, etc and i think things like Pinterest and Tumblr make it much easier for that to bleed into other areas.

Do you have Albertus Seba's Cabinet Of Natural Curiosities?

HEY NO PHOTOS IN HERE!!!

jk those are cool

I just wanted to tempt you all to look at the biodivlibrary flickr smorgasbord of eye candy, sorry about the photos ;)

Sharivari - that's what I was thinking. I am not a young, but I've always enjoyed looking at pictures and things that are both real and not real, if that makes sense. Old fusty museum stuff. I was a hyperactive thrifter for years and I've accumulated all of these books that I saved because I liked the pictures (and I'll be honest, the smell). It's weird to me that there's a...market (?) for this sort of thing.

But this is the sort of magnificence I don't want to see defiled by making an appearance on a poorly designed flyer for MEAT WAVE or w/e. Have some respect, young people of today.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8iqp7K7qD1rtmp17o1_500.jpg

(ps no offense intended to meat wave -- i'm sure you are a very good band with the most excellent flyers, it was just an example)

one more and then i am done for today
look how worried this cuscus is

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7mggqmCOS1qgzqeto1_500.jpg

also lol at my choices of a, b, and 3

aw

Japanese algae
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6063/6049923211_b515398629.jpg
n207_w1150 by BioDivLibrary, on Flickr

British sea-weeds
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7213/7361473692_3b91e4aff5.jpg
n127_w1150 by BioDivLibrary, on Flickr

also gr8080 have you seen this natural history of hawaii? mostly photographs (not illustrations) so i will just link
http://flic.kr/s/aHsjzcP14h

Lots of new line illustrations of Indian medicinal plants are up

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8434/7824477430_dc1726a2cf.jpg
n458_w1150 by BioDivLibrary, on Flickr

also gr8080 have you seen this natural history of hawaii? mostly photographs (not illustrations) so i will just link
http://flic.kr/s/aHsjzcP14h

― these albatrosses have no fear of man (La Lechera), Friday, August 17, 2012 1:14 PM (1 week ago)

just seeing this now, thank you!!

do you mind? we're having a moment here

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8reqkoK9A1qgzqeto1_500.jpg

also like this one a lot, mostly for the colors and weird posture

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8reosPleg1qgzqeto1_500.jpg

attn londoners: lear exhibition @ royal society. free but by appointment and office hours only :(

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/grrlscientist/2012/aug/29/1?newsfeed=true

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8425/7881364128_57864793c9_c.jpg

oh man, that looks so cool!

I've been kind of obsessed with the idea of getting a tattoo of a pre-historic man lately and in my GISing i came across the work of Zdeněk Burian. A littler later period than the stuff on this thread but still pretty cool.

http://i.imgur.com/IErKA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7qpmL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/RVw3v.jpg

my new favorite thread

― nicest bitch of poster (La Lechera), Friday, August 3, 2012 11:21 PM (4 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

when I opened it up and saw the first picture, I imagined it was yours.

:D

just learned about Maria Sibylla Merian, 17th c illustrator of insects and flowers

http://assets.nybooks.com/media/photo/2009/06/15/rowland_1-040909_jpg_230x866_q85.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jfMkW5ejZvE/S8OgIFsqkDI/AAAAAAAAHVM/zSBPmFU0FSI/s1600/Maria-sibylla-merian01.jpg

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4008/4584727244_aa799ffb14_m.jpg

love them 'pillars

today i just want to disappear so i just keep looking at this picture and it gets a tiny bit better

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8032/8071723349_d06f5053c2_b.jpg

beautiful

LL-- any tips on good textbook illustrations of early man? i am considering a tat(oo)

hmmm

i have a book illustrated by richard m powers that i really like -- it's about early man and i think it's part of a series. not so much realistic line drawings but stuff like this, which i love

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7173/6588562073_750453f586_b.jpg

this is the cover of the book
i love it but it's probably too creepy for a tattoo on a guy with a sunny disposition

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7158/6588603327_918a4974e2_b.jpg

^^^ I read this at school, I think. Or at least a book very much like it. IIRC there was also a record that our teacher played that was a dramatisation of some of the events in the book. It was all presented as the cave people's 'inner thoughts', because as the RP-voiced explained, there was no way of knowing if these people actually had any form of language.

RP-voiced

'RP-voiced narrator at the beginning'

the illustrations are great! i love that book.

ooooo know what you should do? visit an out of date natural history museum and take pictures of the illustrations they have there.
(hard from where you are, i'd imagine, but maybe some have websites?)

just an idea
i realized that i developed a taste for inanimate nature while daydreaming at museums when i was a kid -- just like rock after rock after rock, diorama after diorama. i love that shit.

good idea

style i'm looking for is something like halfway between Frazetta/Vallejo and straight-up science textbook, but squarely homo-sapien, not neanderthal etc

this doesn't really help out much in your quest, but so much to look at here!
http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/virtual.html

inanimate nature

This...
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources-rx/images/1010/at-museum-blue-whale-20764-1.jpg
...is huge, the life size blue whale at the Natural History Museum in London

those are ernst haeckel, discussed upthread

beautiful

still thinking about the Temple of Flora illustrations (posted by mordy on march 20). like how the flowers are heroically, monumentally foregrounded, against a capital R Romantic landscape of mountains & brooding clouds. something something sublime something microcosm macrocosm something.

just the sense that that small thing— that particular flower and that particular species of flower— shares in the ephemeral glory of being (like & alongside us humans, appearing on the cosmic stage)

had not read source until today; attendant text fantastic, e.g. for the “Dragon Arum”:

SHE comes peeping from her purple crest with mischief fraught: from her green covert projects a horrid spear of darkest jet, which she brandishes aloft: issuing from her nostrils flies a noisome vapour, infecting the ambient air: her hundred arms are interspersed with white, as in the garments of the inquisition; and on her swollen trunk are observed the speckles of a mighty dragon; her sex is strangely intermingled with the opposite ! confusion dire ! -all framed for horror; or kind to warn the traveller that her fruits are poison-berries, grateful to the sight but fatal to the taste; such is the plan of PROVIDENCE, and such HER wise resolves.

Also caption in article: “Note the depiction in the distance of a volcano mid-spurt” (ha, had noticed the O’Keefesque sexual forms but had not noticed that).

I was tempted to buy an enormous Italian-language edition of the Comte de Buffon's Uccelli yesterday but would have struggled to carry it home.

http://i.imgur.com/Lxsg6Ee.jpg

i enjoyed the wikipedia entry on comte de buffon

At one point, Buffon propounded a theory that nature in the New World was inferior to that of Eurasia. He argued that the Americas were lacking in large and powerful creatures, and that even the people were less virile than their European counterparts. He ascribed this inferiority to the marsh odors and dense forests of the American continent. These remarks so incensed Thomas Jefferson that he dispatched twenty soldiers to the New Hampshire woods to find a bull moose for Buffon as proof of the "stature and majesty of American quadrupeds".[8] Buffon later admitted his error.

of course the biggest New World mammals were [probably] hunted to extinction long before Europeans ever made it over

http://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/styles/small_1x_/public/import/2013/images/2011/01/mammoth.jpg

this is an excellent revive

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23354/23354-h/images/fig203m.jpg
Monstrous pear, showing extension and ramification of the succulent floral axis. The bases of the sepals are also succulent

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23354/23354-h/images/fig162m.jpg
in Papaver bracteatum a considerable number of the stamens sometimes become developed into pistils, especially those which are nearest to the centre of the flower, and in these flowers the filaments are said to become the ovaries, while the anthers are curled so as to resemble stigmas

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23354/23354-h/images/fig058s.jpg
Receptacle of strawberry prolonged into a leafy branch

whoops :-(
if you want to check em out...

Vegetable Teratology: An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants

...they were considered as monsters to be shunned, as lawless deviations from the ordinary rule, unworthy the attention of botanists, or at best as objects of mere curiosity. By those whose notions of structure and conformation did not extend beyond the details necessary to distinguish one species from another, or to describe the salient features of a plant in technical language; whose acquaintance with botanical science might almost be said to consist in the conventional application of a number of arbitrary terms, or in the recollection of a number of names, teratology was regarded as a chaos whose meaningless confusion it were vain to attempt to render intelligible,—as a barren field not worth the labour of tillage.

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/the_vault/2015/04/17/LgWildflowerMap.jpg

some great portraits in this slideshow:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com//2014/04/01/an-evolving-view-of-animals/

not exactly related but this person seems to really embrace the same aesthetic/scientific intersection as the people who sell pages from a botanical illustration book on etsy

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150512/humboldt-park/traveling-taxidermy-instructor-opens-chicago-storefront-niche-lab

there is a $400 make your own taxidermied baby skunk class

i think i finally decided that i do want an ernst haeckel-inspired tattoo

it only took me almost 14 years!!

also this thread is a treasure -- i had no recollection of posting so much lol

i was about to say before i even read your comment LL, this is a glorious thread

Tattoo appt is this week!! Could not be more excited.

It’s done. Now I want like 60 more.

Cool! What did you get?

A radiolarian! If you go to the Project Gutenberg link w Haeckel’s illustrations from the Challenger expedition, it’s top left on plate 81

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44527/44527-h/images/plate081.jpg

To clarify—It’s my artist’s rendering of the Haeckel illustration.

Oh, brilliant - I bet that looks amazing.

an oldie

Always enjoy sharing these brainstem reconstructions by Lewis Weed (1914) - made by tracing outlines on transverse sections, making paper cutouts, stacking them in register and drawing the result ... pic.twitter.com/KmFu7N2Abu

— Matt Kirkcaldie (@MKirkcaldie) October 31, 2021