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An Introduction to Illustrated Zoologies
From: The New York Public Library
| By:
Miriam T. Gross |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Illustrated zoologies encompass both art and science. These early publications contain visual depictions of animals, produced before the advent of photography. While their primary purpose is scientific, many illustrated zoologies include images with extraordinary aesthetic and artistic value. Miriam T. Gross, curator of several major natural history exhibitions at The New York Public Library, describes the basic properties of illustrated zoologies, introduces specialized zoological artists and printmakers, and offers a brief history of these remarkable works. For the purposes of clarity and flow, common names of distinct species, such as the Great Auk, are capitalized throughout this feature, while generic or group names, such as "rhinoceros beetles" are lowercase. |
 oological illustration is a specialized branch of art. Its primary purpose is scientific--the accurate depiction of animals, usually, but not always, in partnership with descriptive text. It differs from animal portraiture, which is the artist's interpretation of an individual rather than a species, and, ideally, is free of narrative, moral and theological messages. From a strictly scientific viewpoint aesthetic considerations are secondary: if renderings are also decorative that must be considered a bonus. But, in reality, the best and most effective illustrations are those that serve both art and science. |
Despite the dominance of photography as a documentary tool in the twentieth century, only drawings can focus on and highlight details that the scientist needs; thus, zoological, botanical and other technical illustrations continue to be created side by side with photographs (and films). The invaluable series of field guides by Roger Tory Peterson are famous examples of contemporary zoological illustration. |
Zoologies: The background
The term "zoology" as applied to a publication is used throughout this article to indicate a book about animals. In addition to works that are in the strictest sense zoologies--such as monographs devoted to a specific animal group, or fauna of one region, or an encyclopedic work embracing all animals--much important literature on the subject has been published in other forms. Reports of voyages and expeditions of exploration, catalogues of private and public collections, zoological journals, general encyclopedias, and reports of learned societies are all rich sources of zoological knowledge, and often are lavishly illustrated. |
The classic zoologies and their illustrations serve more than historic purposes.
 They are documents referred to often by working zoologists, even when the information in their pages is incomplete or has been superseded or refuted by more recent research. The search for the first report and depiction of a species--crucial information in ongoing zoological research--may end with a description and an engraving located in an eighteenth century, or even earlier, publication. And sadly, because of extirpation of species, this first record may also be the only one. |
The modern science of zoology is generally considered to have begun with the work of five giants of the sixteenth century: Konrad Gesner, Pierre Bélon, Ulisse Aldrovandi, Guillaume Rondelet and Ippolito Salviani. Despite their perpetuation of many pagan and religious superstitions, as well as earlier inaccuracies, these pioneers usually studied their subjects first-hand and then described what they saw. The often crude illustrations accompanying the descriptions are integral to the texts, and even in this early period were in many cases amazingly accurate. |
In early zoologies, as in those published later, animals most familiar to the artist were drawn most accurately. This accounts for the greater attention paid to domestic and native mammals and birds, especially before voyages of exploration introduced new and sometimes improbable creatures from foreign lands. Before the development of better techniques of taxidermy in the eighteenth century animal specimens were badly preserved. They could not yield the information that later became available when artists joined expeditions to draw their subjects in their native habitats, and when live animals were brought back for private menageries, and eventually public zoos. |
The animals portrayed
 As subjects of the zoological artist's attentions some animals are more equal than others. There is no doubt that bird illustrations predominate--in quantity, arguably in quality, and certainly in popularity. This reflects the special fascination that birds have had for humans throughout the centuries, due at least in part to their often colorful and sometimes spectacular plumage, as well as the awe inspired by their mastery of the skies. |
Until the nineteenth century many ornithological illustrations, usually drawn from skins or mounted specimens, showed a bird perched on a bare branch. Despite some noteworthy exceptions, it was the art of John James Audubon and of John Gould and his colleagues (particularly Josef Wolf) that first consistently imparted motion and life to bird illustrations. Colored lithographs were an ideal medium to capture the vivid hues of a bird's plumage, with colored engravings running a close second. |
 Illustrations of mammals, our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, have often achieved popularity as decorative art apart from their scientific functions. The highly colored, scenic lithographs and engravings of the nineteenth century are especially popular. Many striking mammal portraits of this period are found in breeders' manuals devoted to the improvement of domestic animals. |
Depictions of other land animals are not so well known as their artistic merits might warrant. Snakes in particular, have, dating from Biblical times, often evoked loathing and fear, despite their attractive colors and patterns and the inoffensive nature of most species. Many herpetologies are beautifully illustrated, but these images will probably never vie with those of birds, horses, and butterflies as living-room decoration. |
Although 70 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water, home to representatives from nearly all 29 phyla, or major divisions of the animal kingdom, zoological artists have devoted less attention to marine and freshwater fauna. The relative inaccessibility of the ocean depths until this century was one reason. Another was the special fragility of aquatic creatures, which decay very rapidly. Colors fade quickly and boneless invertebrates collapse as soon as they are removed from the water. |
Mollusks, because of theirdurable shells (and the tasty flesh of many) have long been familiar to humans, and thousands of species are documented in various multi-volume conchologies. In many of these books the artists grouped shells in geometric or otherwise highly ornamental patterns. Crustaceans such as lobsters and crabs (also longtime table fare) have also often been depicted. Illustrations of fish usually show them rather formally, in profile. |
Until the seventeenth century, insects, which comprise more than four-fifths of all known living species, were generally considered too tiny and thus too insignificant to merit the attention paid to animals of the "higher" orders.
 The development and use of magnifying glasses and microscopes by Anthony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), Robert Hooke (1635-1703), and other pioneers, opened the door to a new world. Now, all the details of insect anatomy and also previously invisible microbes could be studied and illustrated. By the nineteenth century, microscopes had become standard tools of naturalists and zoological artists, and accompanied them on field trips and voyages. Engraving on metal-plate, the dominant reproductive graphic method of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, was an ideal technique to capture the tiny details of microscopic creatures and highly magnified insect parts. |
Because of their beauty of color and form, works devoted to the lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) abound among illustrated entomologies. Numerous multivolume works were published, usually with many individuals illustrated life-size on each page. Sometimes the figures were simply arrayed in a grid pattern, a layout common in illustrations of beetles and other insects, but often intricate geometric arrangements created pretty designs. Space was frequently conserved by flipping over one wing, thus showing both dorsal and ventral views simultaneously. Many artists also included the insects' food plants and all stages of their metamorphosis, from egg to adult. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was the first to depict these spectacular transformations in her famed study of the insects of Surinam. |
Printmaking and the printmakers
The quality of published illustrations was dependent on the skills of the craftspeople involved in translating the artists' designs into a graphic medium. These essential middlemen (and women) have in general not been accorded the recognition due them: many prints do not display the engraver or lithographer's name, and many of these artisans were known only by their last names. Some zoological bibliographies do not even specify the medium of the illustrations, much less the identities of artists and printmakers. Those that focus on the art, such as the Bradley Martin catalogs and Nissen's bibliographies, are outstanding exceptions. |
Although some artists cut their own woodblocks, or engraved
 or etched their own designs on the metal plate, it was lithography, invented at the end of the eighteenth century, and dominant in the second half of the nineteenth, that allowed artists to draw directly on the printing stone. Many zoological illustrators took advantage of this opportunity, creating what are sometimes termed artist lithographs, or autolithographs. Others employed lithographers (who sometimes were illustrators in their own right) to transfer their drawings. |
To produce colored illustrations, prints created by all of the above methods were colored by hand. Consequently, the quality of the coloring often varied from print to print. Even after techniques for printing in color were developed, retouching by hand was usual in the creation of a fine print. |
The printmaker might or might not have been the same person who actually printed the illustration (as opposed to cutting the design in the wood or metal or drawing on the lithographic stone). Some illustrations credit not only the artist and engraver or lithographer, but also the printmaker. Those who hand-colored the prints were hardly ever mentioned, and were often female--either members of the artist's family, or, especially in the nineteenth century, poorly paid artisans. |
This feature was adapted from the article "Classic Illustrated Zoologies (1550-1900) in the Research Collections of The New York Public Library," which originally appeared in the Spring 1994 issue of Biblion. Copyright 2002 The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. All rights reserved. |
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