The greatest scientists are artists too

Albrecht Dürer, considered the greatest German artist of the Northern Renaissance, produced masterpieces that had an enduring influence on natural sciences for centuries. Among the others, a woodcut of a rhinoceros that remained the animal’s ‘official’ scientific image until the 1700s; the first known pictorial representation of a syphilitic man; an astonishing terrestrial map of the eastern hemisphere in perspective; and woodcuts of the northern and southern skies shown as polar projections. His influence as a visual artist on science is profound because he “helped visualize changing conceptions of the universe”, explains Harvard art historian Susan Dackerman. Dürer’s example is one of the many during centuries when the arts and science collaborated closely. The same intellectuals often practiced both – most famous of all, Leonardo da Vinci. Polymaths advanced knowledge because they could capture the beauty of what they observed and discovered, and they could turn their fascination for nature into art. Maria Sibylla Merian, colored copper engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate XLIII. “Spiders, ants and hummingbird on a branch of a guava” (Tarantula: Avicularia avicularia; picture in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons) Maria Sibylla Merian, German naturalist and a contemporary of Isaac Newton, is known as a ‘botanical artist’ for the beautiful drawings she made of insects and plants. She documented the metamorphosis o...
Source: BioMed Central Blog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Biology Health Publishing art citizen science history of science mental health Source Type: blogs