Monday, January 9, 2012

Scientific Illustration

Long before X-rays were X-rays and daguerreotypes were de rigueur, academia had drawings. Simple, line-dominated dissections of fauna and flora; art meant more for learning than decoration. I could pore over every minute detail for hours...


Death’s Head Sphinx Moth


From: ‘A Monograph of Oriental Cicadidæ’ By W.L. Distant

Drawing of a retinal neuron by Ramón y Cajal



Sequoia sempervirens
From ‘Hooker’s Icones Plantarum’ vol. 4: t. 379 (1841)


From Text Book of Mycology and Plant Pathology,  John W. Harshberger


olio-ataxia: Phytological History 1673 Nehemiah Grew


Pelagia Cyanella, William Keith Brooks, 1910

Snakes: Curiosities and Wonders of Serpent Life. Catherine C. Hopley, 1882.

‘Anatomia del corpo humano’ - Rome, 1559
Juan Valverde d'Amusco


Snake Skeleton, A. Duméril, 1834

Metacrinus Cingulatus
From the 'Report of the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger (1873-76)


Skeleton in Giovard Bidloo’s Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams
 (Gerard de Lairesse)

All images found via Scientific Illustration

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