Article ID: CBB001220834

Carl Linnaeus and the Visual Representation of Nature (2011)

unapi

The Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707--1778) is reputed to have transformed botanical practice by shunning the process of illustrating plants and relying on the primacy of literary descriptions of plant specimens. Botanists and historians have long debated Linnaeus's capacities as a draftsman. While some of his detailed sketches of plants and insects reveal a sure hand, his more general drawings of landscapes and people seem ill-executed. The overwhelming consensus, based mostly on his Lapland diary (1732), is that Linnaeus could not draw. Little has been said, however, on the role of drawing and other visual representations in Linnaeus's daily work as seen in his other numerous manuscripts. These manuscripts, held mostly at the Linnean Society of London, are peppered with sketches, maps, tables, and diagrams. Reassessing these manuscripts, along with the printed works that also contain illustrations of plant species, shows that Linnaeus's thinking was profoundly visual and that he routinely used visual representational devices in his various publications. This paper aims to explore the full range of visual representations Linnaeus used through his working life, and to reevaluate the epistemological value of visualization in the making of natural knowledge. By analyzing Linnaeus's use of drawings, maps, tables, and diagrams, I will show that he did not, as has been asserted, reduce the discipline of botany to text, and that his visual thinking played a fundamental role in his construction of new systems of classification.

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Authors & Contributors
Müller-Wille, Staffan
Veuille, Michel
Törnvall, Gunilla
Toma, Constantin
Stearn, William T.
Sjöberg, Cajsa
Concepts
Classification in biology
Botany
Biology
Natural history
Terminology and nomenclature
Systematic botany
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, early
20th century
17th century
Places
Sweden
France
Romania
Great Britain
Institutions
Lund. Universitet
Uppsala Universitet
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