1300 Real and Fanciful Animals: From Seventeenth-Century Engravings

by Matthäus Merian, Carol Belanger Grafton (Editor)

Unusual and imaginative illustrations, carefully arranged into 4 major divisions — quadrupeds, birds, fishes, and insects — include realistic and fanciful depictions of virtually every real animal, plus such fantasy creatures as unicorns, dragons and basilisks. Indispensable volume of royalty-free graphics for immediate use by commercial and graphic artists.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Reference

141 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 23, 1998

Reviews

[Salem ☥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every type of butterfly but no sharks... Ok.

[J · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is normally the type of books that I love upfront since they combine history and animals, which are two of the things that I enjoy the most. At the same time it allows us to get a glimpse of how the world saw the creatures that it believed it was sharing the world with while at the same time giving them such a foreign appearance that it allows one to be grateful we have such clear ways of viewing those same animals for what they are even if we are millions of miles away from actually seeing it in real person.

Unfortunately for me, though, with this particular book it did drop short. Although I know that it is trying to reproduce an older work and keep it the way it was the formatting was just wrong. The Latin writing of the name was too small for me to see in digital format while also helping in confusing readers as to what animal they are actually viewing. And although there was an index in the back it was just basically a list of possible animals with no page or template numbers to help the reader with navigation while also being in alphabetical order, which isn't the way the book is formatted.

Otherwise if you just want to enjoy the book for its art it is decent for artwork for its time but definitely otherwise not a book recommendation I would suggest.

[THOMAS MCKEARN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hand Drawings by Word of Mouth

The images seen here were not likely drawn from live models, except for most of the farm animals. None of the fauna of Australia are here...Captain Cook's slow motion globe trotting had yet to take place. And African animals were unknown for the most part, and who among these worthy artisans had heard of grizzly, brown or Kodiak bears in their time? Not a range many one of them!

These men (and hopefully women) must've made much of these drawings from others, and from word of mouth. Delightfully, much of what we servers is simply human imagination formed around a few rough bones and a few cervix imaginations.

The results are wonderful!

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pictures are very interesting, but I would have appreciated more text explaining the pictures and their origins, particularly for the more fantastic animals.

[královna sedmi moří · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed. Nice visual summary but informations are missing. :/

[Val Cuellar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations ❤️

[Dosoky Elsayed]

nngn

[R.A. Danger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the animals in here are from Theatrum universale omnium Animalium (after 1650). Mostly animals we know now and some we call mythical animals. In looking at these old bestiaries we can see how far we have come in making are own bestiaries (field guides and animals of the world). Consider this a visually field guide with Latin names of each animal or group of animals.

In here you can find: mammals, amphibians, reptiles, sea creatures, birds, insects, spiders, and even some pictures of hives.

The art work ranges from funny looking familiar animals to very good. I consider on a whole the insects, spiders, and hives to be the most accurate.