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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Forgotten Ecologist Getting Her Due, October 30, 2007
You may have seen the artwork of Maria Sibylla Merian, as it is a staple for pretty but accurate pictures of butterflies, caterpillars, moths, and flowers, and can be found on china or stationery. She was more than a painter or engraver, though. Her life was unique. She had artistic talent, but she was also a keen scientific observer, who advanced the study of insects immeasurably. She was a teenaged bride who left her husband who divorced her, and she had to care for their two children. She was so enthralled with the study of moths and butterflies that at age 52 she traveled to a mysterious and largely unknown land to see more of them, and to bring back pictures and scientific descriptions of their behavior. And she did this more than three centuries ago. _Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis_ (Harcourt) by Kim Todd is a thoughtful examination of what we can know about Merian's life from the few personal documents that remain about her, and a proper reevaluation of her place in the world's scientific effort. It also is a fine resource about the biological controversies that were brewing in the seventeenth century, controversies that had to be settled in order for a basic understanding of insect life to take hold.
Merian was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1647. She could not have a formal apprenticeship like a male artist in training, and she could not even paint in oils, because the rules of the guild forbade women from doing so. She was, however, able to use watercolors and engraving with beauty and utility to bring her objects of study almost to life upon the page. When Merian studied or painted insects, she included what foods they ate, and how they proceeded from egg to larva to pupa and to the adult, and it was all part of her contribution to science and to the branch that later was to be known as ecology. In doing so, she was working against scientific currents of the time, since it was held that insects could spontaneously generate from rotting meat, dew, or wool. She also was taking a risk in showing interest in possibly satanic insects, especially since she kept them alive, fed them, and kept their cocoons in her kitchen. Women were accused of witchcraft for less. Dutch curiosity cabinets did contain spectacular specimens from the colony of Surinam, but Merian wanted to see the insects as they lived, and used the money she made from her books and her paintings to finance her two-year trip there. She relied on the natives to tell her about the plants and their uses, and she got the first rudimentary understandings of the rainforest as a complex ecosystem; she observed, for instance, that butterflies at the tops of the trees were different from the ones nearer the ground.
Merian left Surinam after only two years because of illness, probably malaria. After she returned to the Netherlands, she published _Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium_ in 1705, full of pictures and descriptions of the colorful insects she had seen on her travel. The beauty of the pictures was praised, but only succeeding generations could appreciate the ecological innovations of her insect portraits. Her reputation suffered after her death; if she were discussed at all, it was to ridicule her picture of a spider capturing a hummingbird. After all, she had no formal education, she accepted the reports of natives who lived among the insects she depicted, and she was a woman. It was only in the twentieth century that her reputation was restored, not just as an artist but as a scientist who insisted on direct observation of the insects she described, and who realized how their cycles linked within a larger natural system. Todd's book has to have a great deal of speculation in it; she includes many sentences beginning with "perhaps" or "probably". This is because the sources are scant. There are Merian's books and paintings, of course, but beyond that are a couple of her legal documents and less than twenty letters she wrote. Nonetheless, Merian's contributions to biology were considerable, and Todd's well-illustrated and thoughtful book helps in the restoration of her reputation.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating new book, January 20, 2007
Ever since "Tinkering with Eden," I have been eagerly awaiting Kim Todd's next book, and, with "Chrysalis," she does not disappoint. Anyone who enjoys a good biography should read this book - and for that reason, it's a great book to give as a gift. The topic sounds obscure, but Todd's vivid prose brings her remarkable subject to life. Highly recommended!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Maria Sibylla Merian: The Original Prochronistic Entomologist, December 28, 2008
This review is from: Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis (Paperback)
Maria Sibylla Merian was one of the first naturalists to approach collection and illustration from an ecological point of view--though that term wouldn't be used until 150 years after her death ("oecology" in Ernst Haeckel's Generelle Morphology; see the documentary DVD Proteus for more on Haeckel). She understood that a butterfly or caterpillar removed from nature and placed in a curiosity cabinet is merely one stage of a much more complicated life story. Chrysalis is thus well worth consideration, even if your interest in natural history is minimal.
Kim Todd's biography is a good one, despite an unfortunate lack of source material documenting Merian's inner life. Todd is judicious with her speculations. Her conclusions about Merian's thoughts/feelings are reasonable, if occasionally florid. But considering the subject matter, a little floridity is hardly a flaw.
As the subtitle "... and the Secrets of Metamorphosis" would suggest, the reader is also given a broader view of the milieu in which Merian was working and the contemporaneous theories about spontaneous generation and parasitic behavior in insects.
The book also offers depictions of some of the unusual characters traveling in the scientific and religious circles of the time:
* Frederik Ruysch, a surgeon and obstetrician who created moralistic montages of fetal skeletons holding objects such as a handkerchief made of lung or a violin bow made of artery, accompanied by captions like "Why should I long for the things of this world?"
* James Petiver, an apothecary and fellow of the Royal Society, a buyer of damaged insects, and a man described by a student as "wretched both in looks and actions."
* Antoinette Bourignon, a misandrist who believed that three-fourths of men conspired with the devil; she refused to read the Bible, yet received visitations from God and St. Augustine.
I wish Chrysalis contained more illustrations of Merian's work, but those are readily available in other books. If you'd like to know more about some of the naturalists mentioned by Todd (Henry Walter Bates, Charles Waterton, etc.), check out Bright Paradise by Peter Raby or The Naturalists by Alan Jenkins. Raby's book contains a chapter on the female scientific travelers Mary Kingsley and Marianne North.
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