William Bartram's love of nature led him to explore the environs of the American Southeast between 1773 and 1777. Here he collected plants and seeds, kept a journal of his observations of nature, and made drawings of the plants and animals he encountered. The completed drawings were sent to his patron in London, and these make up the bulk of the collection held at London's Natural History Museum. The "Art and Science of William Bartram" brings together, for the first time, all sixty-eight drawings by Bartram held at the Natural History Museum, along with works by some of the most well-known natural history artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The volume explores Bartram's writings and artwork and reveals how influential he was in American science of the period. Bartram was an inspiration to a whole generation of young scientists and field naturalists. He was an authority on the birds of North America and on the lifestyle, culture, and language of the indigenous people of the regions through which he traveled. His work influenced Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other writers and poets throughout the past two hundred years, and his drawings reveal an ecological understanding of nature that only truly developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
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"More slithering lowlife can be found in Judith Magee's luminous The Art and Science of William Bartram. Long before Audubon, Bartram wandered through Cherokee outposts and Florida river basins, circa 1776, filling his notebooks with quasi-surrealist renderings of bobolinks and frolicking alligators. Bartram's pictures are beautifully reproduced in Magee's volume, and she makes a good c!ase for his scientific expertise. It's easy to see why Bartram's idiosyncratic work stoked the feverish fantasies of Coleridge and Wordsworth." --Christopher Benfey, Slate's Best Books of 2007
This well-written, accessible, and scholarly book does a splendid job situating William Bartram in the larger context of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the rhetoric of European and American natural history. --Randall C. Griffin, Southern Methodist University
This well-written, accessible, and scholarly book does a splendid job situating William Bartram in the larger context of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the rhetoric of European and American natural history. --Randall C. Griffin, Southern Methodist University
About the Author
Judith Magee is Collections Development Manager in the Library of the Natural History Museum, London. She has acted as picture researcher for several publications and has contributed to Plant Discoveries: A Botanist's Voyage Through Plant Exploration (2003) and Great Naturalists (forthcoming).
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bartram's Catalog Raisonne,
By Charles M. Marsteller "Charley_SF" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Art and Science of William Bartram (Hardcover)
This book is as near a catalog raisonne one can find on the botanical and other natural history illustrations by William Bartram and some of the other famous naturalists of his day.
This book is also highly regarded by Bartram authorities with whom I am acquainted, and in fact, the book was recommended to me. Having read it, I recommend it with to you. The only problem I have with the presentation is that cost-savings were apparently necessary and thumbnails of the various natural history illustrations were used in lieu of full page prints. Nevertheless, these provide a wonderful reference point. I would also refer the reader to the American Philosophical Societies website as their collection is now on line.
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