Imaging Science: Very Populated but not-Crowded Images, 1728

JF Ptak Science Books      Post 1821

Rene Magritte says that this is not a pipe.  And of course he is correct--it isn't a pipe; it is a painting of a pipe.  And so the Surrealist (or the man who was a painter who painted in a style known as Surrealisme) establishes a bit of character in the history of images in a painting known as The Treachery of Images. 

I am very attracted to non-treacherous displays of scientific evidence and thinking, particularly those illustrations for encyclopediae and large works on large things, universal assemblies of the state of knowledge in some past century, the engraved page holding dozens of pieces of data.  It is a beautiful thing when the page gets very populated but not crowded, when there is room enough for not one more image but plenty of room for what is there.  There is a great elegance to this sort of display, and it is one that escapes me almost completely.

I recently found that the great encyclopedia established by Ephraim Chambers (and associates and related contributors and many others) called, at great-but-acceptable length, Cyclopædia, or, An universal dictionary of arts and sciences : containing the definitions of the terms, and accounts of the things signify'd thereby, in the several arts, both liberal and mechanical, and the several sciences, human and divine : the figures, kinds, properties, productions, preparations, and uses, of things natural and artificial : the rise, progress, and state of things ecclesiastical, civil, military, and commercial : with the several systems, sects, opinions, &c : among philosophers, divines, mathematicians, physicians, antiquaries, criticks, &c : the whole intended as a course of antient and modern learning, and printed in 1728, was available online in searchable form.  (Source, here.) It is a wonderful and magnificent thing, this book, which was a collection of virtually everything that needed to be known in the early 18th century and included in two tall (41 cm) volumes. 

It was pretty popular, too, going into a second edition in 1738, and then five more between 1739-1751/2.  It went into a final edition, expanded by five more volumes, after the death of Chambers, and continued to reach and educate people in a new fashion long after his death. 

The Chambers work is one of those whose illustrations are very full and uncrowded, a fine display of sense-of-place and placement and of good design.  Here's a selection of the images, including the following outlines of nature (A general table of fossils; Botany tab 1 Herbs and trees; Botany tab 2 Distinctions of the leaves, flowers, and cups of plants; Botany tab 3 The genera of mosses; Quadrupeds and serpents; The more scarce and curious birds; The most scarce and remarkable fishes; Insects; Testaceous and crustaceous animals; A general table of shells; Microscopical objects and discoveries):

 

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