Insects and Flowers: The Art of Maria Sibylla Merian

by Maria Sibylla Merian, David Brafman, Stephanie Schrader

The artist and scientist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was born in Frankfurt, Germany, into a middle-class family of publishers and artists. With her meticulous depictions of insect metamorphosis, she raised the standards of natural history illustration and helped give birth to the field of entomology. At the age of fifty-two, Merian traveled with her younger daughter to Suriname, a Dutch territory in South America, to paint its exotic flora and fauna.
Many of the drawings produced by Merian in the South American jungle were later published as hand-colored engravings in her book Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname (1705), which brought her widespread fame. A copy of the second edition is held in the collections of the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute.
Insects and Flowers, a delightful gift book that reproduces vivid color details of sixteen plates from the Getty's copy, is a vibrant encapsulation of Merian's book and features an engaging essay on Merian's life and work as well as an insect and plant identification guide. An exhibition of Merian's work will be on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from June 10 through August 31, 2008.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Science, Nature

52 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2008

About the author

Maria Sibylla Merian was a naturalist and scientific illustrator who studied plants and insects and made detailed paintings about them. Her detailed observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly make her a significant contributor to entomology.

Reviews

[Darrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short one. Pretty much a book of details from larger prints published in her large zoological folios published in the 17th and 18th centuries. She was an amazing artist and researcher with many breakthrough (later recognized) discoveries about insects.

[raffaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short book with some close-ups of Maria Sibylla Merian's artwork. A good companion to this book.

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful little book with full-scale details from Maria Sibylla Merian’s much larger plates showing insects and flowers from Suriname. The afterward is a concise overview of her life, work, and significance.

Merian was a German naturalist and artist who, from age 13, began documenting zoology and making observations that men would take decades to re-make (and claim as their own).

At age 52, she traveled with her daughter to Suriname on what was probably “the first purely scientific expedition to the Americas ever undertaken by individuals on a private initiative.”

There’s something phantasmagorical about her work. Saturated in colour, compressing multiple points of time into one image, with erotic-looking pupae and fruits, and macabre encounters between spiders and their prey. It’s beautiful, disturbing, full of life and death.

[Christine Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miss Girl Boss, "the woman who revolutionized the science of zoology and the art of illustrating it!"

I've seen her art and art inspired by her everywhere, but I never knew her name. I'm glad I picked up this little paperback book. I'm even gladder Aunty Maria is being recognized and credited now. She had to live through a world that refused to see her genius.

[Dodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous little book that briefly tells the life story of Maria Sibylla Merian (illustrator/scientist).

[Meg]

Beautiful, though I admit the various spider and ant illustrations make me a little jumpy and itchy.

[Susanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing pictures in pocket format

[Retta Ritchie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is beautiful!