The Illusion of Orderly Progress [Hardcover]

Barbara Norfleet (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 1999

From one of America's most distinguished and quirkily gifted photographers, a wildly original book of images that chronicles--and critiques--the curiously familiar social life of bugs.

        Barbara Norfleet loves bugs for both their beauty and their strangeness, and the fact that they've been on earth so much longer than the human race that they make us look like new kids on the block.  In this remarkable collection, she sets out to explore her own vision of bug society--its feelings, its relationships and rituals, its neuroses and malaises at the end of what is, after all,  just one more millennium in bug history. From a grasshopper poised triumphantly atop a rock and a spindly-armed pair of Harlequin beetles dancing, to a group of twittering bugs gathered to watch the sun set, a beetle beauty pageant, and a bug hanging, Norfleet captures with extraordinary humor and perception an amazing reflection of our own experience and feelings. Most wonderful of all is what we are led to discover--that bugs are us.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Barbara Norfleet's bugs are more human than humans. In this remarkable collection of photographs, Norfleet has posed insects and arachnids in dioramas that profoundly illustrate the failings and foibles of our own species. In his foreword, entomologist E.O. Wilson notes, "The artist means to tell us something about human nature, particularly in its more vainglorious, cowardly, and other foolish manifestations."

Photos of human workers engaged in meaningless toil would make a somewhat overdone point, but Norfleet's carefully posed insects and strange, barren landscapes pull us away from the familiar just enough to make us see things we might have missed. Her gorgeous and rare insects are so peculiar, so engagingly presented that they provoke brand-new reactions to such activities as capital punishment, domestication of other animals, and war. In one photo entitled Little Time for Whimsy, a line of serious beetles works hard at pushing their burdens--Where? Why? And for how long? You may as well ask why some of us voluntarily sit in cubicles eight hours a day. Another diorama (Am I Pretty?) gently mocks vanity as a line of garishly colored tropical beetles competes for the gold star that will presumably bring ultimate satisfaction. Insect society seems to have a lot in common with our own. Besides the thoughtful and clever poses, each photo affords a close look at some of the most amazing creatures you'll ever see. It's a wonderland of entomological ecstasy. --Therese Littleton

From Scientific American

It is a slender book of stunning photographs, part serious science and part whimsy. Norfleet has posed many colorful insects, most of them dead, in more or less natural settings and photographed them. She presents a five-inch by seven-inch photograph on each right-hand page. The whimsy is in the brief caption on each facing page and often in the related photograph. For example, the caption that also serves as the book's title accompanies a photograph of 13 shining leaf chafer beetles (Chrysina macropus) forming a vertical triangle around a piece of clay in what appears to be almost military precision, but they are in fact circling forever and going nowhere. At the end of the book, Norfleet identifies the insects in each photograph insofar as their identity is known. "There exist between 10 and 30 million insects," she notes, "and only about 1 million have names." Norfleet is founder, director and curator of the photography collection at Harvard University's Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. She has done herself proud with this, her seventh book.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 101 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (April 12, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375405585
• ISBN-13: 978-0375405587
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,374,833 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling narrative still life, January 26, 2002

By 

J. E. Patterson "fine art photographer" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Illusion of Orderly Progress (Hardcover)

While not for the overtly squeamish, since her "actors" are various tropical bugs and spiders, this is a very compelling photo collection. Even while it is obviously a constructed still life, these scenes crackle with life, energy, and meaning, poking gentle -- and not so gentle -- fun at the human condition.

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Take on The World, May 23, 2007

By 

Steven Bryant-Allen "kingstephanos" (Roxbury, Ma. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Illusion of Orderly Progress (Hardcover)

Illusions... fits into many categories: entomology, graphic art, or insect appreciation perhaps. Whatever the subdivision of this work may be, I myself found it very appealing. Similar to her numerous other works, she grabs the viewer here - calling my personal perspectives concerning human nature into question. One thing is certain about Barbara Norfleet's collection - she is an admirer of insects, from the mundane to the rare species, a woman of immense talent.