In tomorrow’s New York Times I have an essay about the art of seeing Nature’s unseen–from the bestiaries of the Middle Ages to today’s images of feathered dinosaurs and upright apes. Check it out, and also check out the accompanying slide show about Conrad Gessner, a Renaissance naturalist who assembled the greatest zoological encyclopedia of his day–which included unicorns.
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"Celebrated curiosity monger"
Carl Zimmer writes about science regularly for the New York Times and magazines such as Discover, where he is a contributing editor and columnist.
He is the author of twelve books, the most recent of which is Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed. His website is carlzimmer.com and his address is blog at carlzimmer dot com .
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March 22nd, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Nice article, and thanks for the shout-out on the web slide show! –Brian
March 22nd, 2010 at 11:07 pm
I handled some of Gessner’s original diagrams when in Erlangen last year. He did a lot of drawings for an uncompleted Historia Plantarum. I think that with any one of those drawings in hand I could have identified the plant in the field. The man was a glorious observer.
March 23rd, 2010 at 2:52 am
For a second-hand copy of a drawing from written descriptions, that rhinoceros really isn’t bad.
March 23rd, 2010 at 1:26 pm
For a second-hand copy of a drawing from written descriptions, that rhinoceros really isn’t bad.
Indeed. The beaver isn’t too bad either. What’s most striking isn’t so much the inaccuracy of the unfamiliar animals (which is both surprisingly small and forgivable), but the inaccuracy of some of the familiar forms. And of course the credulousness with regard to the fantastical animals. Unicorns are one thing – there was a thriving in trade in narwhal horns claimed to be from unicorns. But monkfish with human heads taken straight from protestant propaganda? Was he not the least bit suspicious?
March 23rd, 2010 at 7:49 pm
As ever, super article written by Carl on NYTS. The latest article here is making me think… see!
March 31st, 2010 at 2:00 am
[...] has a typically brilliant (and beautifully illustrated) article in the New York Times about “Unseen Beasts, Then and Now“: Somewhere in England, about 600 years ago, an artist sat down and tried to paint an [...]