Scientific
Propositions in a Landscape
There is a genre in the illustration of books where scientific propositions
are explained diagramatically but also set within a recognisable landscape.
The fusion doesn't have to be between realism and the geometric.
The convention of the Diagrammatic precariously joined the
the topographic. Compare the Le Clerc and the Cleland to see how
extensive is the influence of the medium. Note the dates.
In cartography,
there is often a combination of the Illusionistic and the Diagrammatic.
02 J.W.Goethe, Farbenlehre , published in Tübingen in 1810.
This is the much reproduced hand coloured engraving found in the great German
poet and theoretician's central work on the properties of colour.
03.
In P.J.Garidel's Histoire des Plantes... Aix and Paris,
1719, the illustrations site the specimens above the landscape in a
most interesting way.
04 from G.B.Agricola, De Mensuris & Ponderibus Romanorum Atque Graecorum ,published
in Basel in 1550.
Bernard Picart, illustration to The Works of Fontenelle Gosse & Neaulme,
La Haye, 1728 - 1729
Burckhard von Birckenstein, Ertz-Herzogliche Handgriffe dess Zirkels
und Linials oder Ausserwehlter Anfang zu denen Mathematischen Wissenscahft ,
van Ghelen, Vienna, 1686.
Joachim Dalencé, Traité de l'Aiman, Henry
Eerstein, Amsterdam, 1687, a study of magnetic properties with entertaining
and imaginative illustrations.
Egnatio Danti, Tratto del radio Latino, Istrumento giustissimo &
facile piu d'ogn' altro per prendere quala si voglia misura, & positione
di luogo tanto in Cielo, come in Terra ,Accolti, Rome,
1583.
Sebastian Le Clerc, Pratique de la geometrie, Paris 1669.
And printed by Jean Cusson for Thomas Jolly. A highly influential book
with Le Clerc's characteristic fusion of the representational and the diagrammatic.
a geometrical device to assist in winning the Lottery from Albumazzar
de Carpentari, La Clef D'Or,
Avignon 1814
10. Claude Perrault, Memoirs for a Natural History of Animals ,Streater,
London 1688. The unusual blend of the representational and the
illusionistic chart.
11. Thomas Cleland, illustrations of geometrical propositions from Wentworth
and Smiths High School Mathematics ,1917. See Le Clerc above
for a prototype of Cleland's revival style.
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