The insect and the image : visualizing nature in early modern Europe, 1500-1700

Author(s)

    • Neri, Janice

Bibliographic Information

The insect and the image : visualizing nature in early modern Europe, 1500-1700

Janice Neri

University of Minnesota Press, c2011

  • : pb

Available at  / 2 libraries

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Once considered marginal members of the animal world (at best) or vile and offensive creatures (at worst), insects saw a remarkable uptick in their status during the early Renaissance. This quickened interest was primarily manifested in visual images-in illuminated manuscripts, still life paintings, the decorative arts, embroidery, textile design, and cabinets of curiosity. In The Insect and the Image, Janice Neri explores the ways in which such imagery defined the insect as a proper subject of study for Europeans of the early modern period. It was not until the sixteenth century that insects began to appear as the sole focus of paintings and drawings-as isolated objects, or specimens, against a blank background. The artists and other image makers Neri discusses deployed this "specimen logic" and so associated themselves with a mode of picturing in which the ability to create a highly detailed image was a sign of artistic talent and a keenly observant eye. The Insect and the Image shows how specimen logic both reflected and advanced a particular understanding of the natural world-an understanding that, in turn, supported the commodification of nature that was central to global trade and commerce during the early modern era. Revealing how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century artists and image makers shaped ideas of the natural world, Neri's work enhances our knowledge of the convergence of art, science, and commerce today.

Table of Contents

Contents Introduction: Specimen Logic I. Insects as Objects and Insects as Subjects: Establishing Conventions for Illustrating Insects 1. Joris Hoefnagel's Imaginary Insects: Inventing an Artistic Identity 2. Cutting and Pasting Nature into Print: Ulisse Aldrovandi's and Thomas Moffet's Images of Insects 3. Suitable for Framing: Insects in Early Still Life Paintings II. New Worlds and New Selves 4. Between Observation and Image: Representations of Insects in Robert Hooke's Micrographia 5. Stitches, Specimens, and Pictures: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Processing of the Natural World Conclusion: Discipline and Specimenize Acknowledgments Notes Index

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