Pick, Cecilia Mary (Author)
This dissertation has two main objectives. First, it intends to show that early modern German author portraits have a rhetorical form that is both verbal and visual and have a function beyond presenting writers to their public. The elements employed in representing the author and the process by which meaning is constructed in that representation are particular to the early modern period. By interpreting the form and meaning in a manner appropriate to a society attuned to rhetoric and representation, we see a cultural agenda that the author portrait seeks to serve. Second, the dissertation offers a case study on the representation of Maria Sibylla Merian (1647--1717) in the books authored by her. An artist and naturalist, Merian's investigations took her as far as Suriname at the age of 52, and in her lifetime she published three illustrated books on her findings. Chapter one surveys lines of tradition of the pan- European author portrait and presents an approach that considers author images in connection to the front matter of their books. The Merian case study comprises chapter two through six. Chapter two begins with the printing history of Merian's works and narrows the Merian images under consideration to one portrait and two frontispieces. Chapter three analyzes front matter of Merian editions dating from 1675 to 1771 by taking a diachronic look at first editions and later adaptations by changing participants in the publishing process. Chapter four considers how Merian's image as an artist first leans upon family reputation and then encompasses her unique style, subject matter, and purpose. Chapter five situates Merian's identity as a naturalist within a larger scientific context and shows how her image participates in a larger eighteenth-century publishing enterprise that exploits the appeal of exotic flora and fauna to promote colonial science. Chapter six explores how gender affects Merian's multi-faceted persona in print by comparing her image with a portrait and frontispieces in works by naturalist Georg Rumphius. The conclusion addresses the implications of Merian's presentation for further understanding the employment of visual and textual front matter.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 65 (2005): 3818. UMI pub. no. 3150920.
Article
Etheridge, Kay;
(2011)
Maria Sibylla Merian and the Metamorphosis of Natural History
(/isis/citation/CBB001210122/)
Chapter
Etheridge, Kay;
(2011)
Maria Sibylla Merian: The First Ecologist?
(/isis/citation/CBB001221547/)
Book
Attenborough, David;
Owens, Susan;
Clayton, Martin;
Alexandratos, Rea;
(2007)
Amazing Rare Things: The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery
(/isis/citation/CBB000772794/)
Thesis
Kinukawa, Tomomi;
(2001)
Art Competes with Nature: Maria Sibylla Merian (1647--1717) and the Culture of Natural History
(/isis/citation/CBB001560512/)
Article
Roos, Anna Marie Eleanor;
Edwin D. Rose;
(2018)
Lives and Afterlives of the Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia (1699), The First Illustrated Field Guide to English Fossils
(/isis/citation/CBB973730328/)
Book
O'Malley, Therese;
Meyers, Amy R. W.;
(2008)
The Art of Natural History: Illustrated Treatises and Botanical Paintings, 1400--1850
(/isis/citation/CBB000830825/)
Chapter
Kay Etheridge;
F. J. M. Pieters;
(2015)
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717): Pioneering Naturalist, Artist, and Inspiration for Catesby
(/isis/citation/CBB996021357/)
Book
Bert Van De Roemer;
Florence Pieters;
Hans Mulder;
Kay Etheridge;
Marieke Van Delft;
(2022)
Maria Sibylla Merian
(/isis/citation/CBB825530463/)
Article
Kinukawa, T.;
(2011)
Natural History as Entrepreneurship: Maria Sibylla Merian's Correspondence with J. G. Volkamer II and James Petiver
(/isis/citation/CBB001230622/)
Article
Ogilvie, Brian W.;
(2008)
Nature's Bible: Insects in Seventeenth-Century European Art and Science
(/isis/citation/CBB001021790/)
Thesis
Bleichmar, Daniela;
(2005)
Visual Culture in Eighteenth-Century Natural History: Botanical Illustrations and Expeditions in the Spanish Atlantic
(/isis/citation/CBB001561771/)
Article
Pyenson, Lewis;
(2011)
The Enlightened Image of Nature in the Dutch East Indies: Consequences of Postmodernist Doctrine for Broad Structures and Intimate Life
(/isis/citation/CBB001022672/)
Article
Pietsch, Theodore W.;
(2011)
Charles Plumier's “Manicou Caraibarum” (c. 1690): A Previously Unpublished Description and Drawing of the Common Opossum, Didelphis Marsupialis Linnaeus, 1758
(/isis/citation/CBB001034301/)
Book
Olsen, Penny;
(2008)
A Brush with Birds: Australian Bird Art from the National Library of Australia
(/isis/citation/CBB001033757/)
Article
LoTufo, Ilaria;
(2003)
Images of the Natural (and Social) Universe in Rétif De La Bretonne's La Découverte australe
(/isis/citation/CBB000340803/)
Book
Raat, Alexander J. P.;
(2010)
The Life of Governor Joan Gideon Loten (1710--1789)
(/isis/citation/CBB001251420/)
Article
Bleichmar, Daniela;
(2006)
Painting as Exploration: Visualizing Nature in Eighteenth-Century Colonial Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000631064/)
Chapter
Kay Etheridge;
(2016)
The History and Influence of Maria Sibylla Merian’s Bird-Eating Tarantula: Circulating Images and the Production of Natural Knowledge
(/isis/citation/CBB701832624/)
Article
Nickelsen, Kärin;
(2006)
“In deutlichen Beschreibungen und richtigen Zeichnungen gemeinnütziger” -- Abbildungen in der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin (GNF), 1773--1800
(/isis/citation/CBB000933669/)
Chapter
Jorink, Eric;
(2011)
Beyond the Lines of Apelles: Johannes Swammerdam, Dutch Scientific Culture and the Representation of Insect Anatomy
(/isis/citation/CBB001201617/)
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