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heaveninawildflower · 4 months

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'Der See-Elefant' (circa 1883) by Aloys Zötl (1803–1887).

Watercolour.

Wikimedia.

#animal illustration #Aloys Zötl #antique illustration #elephant seal #19th century art

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mote-historie · 2 months

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Painting Illustration by Xavier Gosé, Le Manteau bleu, The Blue Mantle, 1912.

Morera. Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani, Carrer Major, 31, 25007 Lleida, Spain

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sassafrasmoonshine · 4 months

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Sarah Stilwell-Weber (American illustrator, 1878-1939) • Harmony in the Light of the Moon, Illustration for The Pine Lady by Richard Le Gallienne • Harper's Monthly Magazine • 1903

#illustration #art #illustrator #artwork #antique illustration #sarah stilwell-weber #american illustrator #woman artist #painted illustration #oil on canvas #women in artworks #sassafras and moonshine #painting #book illustration #illustration art

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rebeccathenaturalist · 4 months

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So in writing the history of identification/taxonomy chapter for The Everyday Naturalist, I spent a lot of time poring over scans and reprints of very old western European natural history books. This included a lot of medieval bestiaries, which were usually illuminated manuscripts with the colorful, stylized artwork so common from that era. It wasn't until the European Renaissance that you started seeing more of an emphasis on realistic artwork, and by the time you get to the transitional period between the late Renaissance and the Enlightenment engravings based on original drawings were very common for illustrating books on animals and plants.

A lot of the images passed around as "antique scientific illustrations" stem from the mid-17th century Historiae Naturalis written by John Jonston and illustrated by Matthäus Merian the Elder. By this point in history numerous European nations were sending ships around the globe to bring back resources, which included a significant number of natural history specimens. The sheer variety and biodiversity represented by these gave naturalists in these countries an overwhelming amount of fodder for study, classification, and publication.

However, there was still the perennial problem that not everyone writing or illustrating these seemingly exotic species could access them in person. Medieval bestiaries, and their predecessor the Physiologus, tended to mix natural history with religious allegory, and often the writers had never actually seen the species they were describing. Since they had to go on secondhand (or thirdhand, or fifteenthhand) information, things sometimes got lost in translation like a big game of Telephone. And the situation was still the same by the time Jonston and Merian were working on the Historiae Naturalis.

Which is why that venerable attempt to catalog as many of the animals in the known world as possible includes, amid pages of real animals like molluscs, deer, and bats (categorized with the birds!), you also had descriptions and engravings of six different unicorn species. Jonston did remark that he was going entirely on the word of others and cited his sources wherever he could, but it seems as though most of them were treating the unicorn as a separate beast from the rhinoceros or antelopes. (You can find a scan of the entire Historiae Naturalis de Quadrupedibus here, if you want to read for yourself.)

This is probably the last major natural history work in which unicorns and other mythical animals would be presented as equally real as flesh-and-blood animals; once the Enlightenment got into full swing, the sciences sought empirical evidence, and hearsay was generally no longer considered good enough for publication. So there's something a little charming about this text that bridges the gap between the ancient bestiaries with their blurring of fact and fiction, and the modern emphasis on chasing down the truth behind the myths.

#natural history #Historiae Naturalis #scientific illustration #antique illustration #vintage illustration #bestiaries #science #unicorns #animals #wildlife #nature #Renaissance #medieval art #medieval history #bestiary #history #art history #antique animals

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edwardian-girl-next-door · 8 months

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Details from the Child Library Reader Primer (1923), illustrated by L. Kate Deal

via kevincfleming on pinterest

#illustration #art #illustration art #vintage illustration #nostalgia #childrens illustration #1920s #1920s art #the golden age of illustration #golden age of illustration #children's books #vintage aesthetic #antique aesthetic #antique books #vintage books #antique illustration #e

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informedbyaconstellation · 3 months

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#collage inspiration #collage material #vintage illustration #antique illustration #vintage advertising

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cryptixotic · 2 years

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Day 26 : Reef Study "You know what it lacks ? A little watercolor crustacean is what it lacks"

#marine biology #oceancore #reef #antique illustration #botanical illustrations #victorian #1800s #watercolor art #oddities #inktober #inktober 2022

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alienscty · 1 year

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Vintage Garden Botanical seed packet Prints set

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artdecoandmodernist · 1 year

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Armand Vallee, L'Heure du Bain, a la Piscine du Claridge (Bath time at the Claridge swimming pool), 1919.

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sennamaticart · 5 months

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Brass and Copper

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suneaterzines · 5 months

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An older incomplete piece, kind of an attempt for a back cover of a book. I may revisit it in the future… I do like the colors and the intricacies here.

#book #book cover #vintage books #book illustration #antique books #vintage book #vintage #vintage illustration #antique illustration #antique

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mistymountainmonster · 2 months

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