Science and the Artist's Book
Smithsonian Institution Libraries Exhibition Gallery
and the Washington Project for the Arts
Washington, DC
1995-1996
EXHIBITION BROCHURE TEXT
Washington, DC
1995-1996
EXHIBITION BROCHURE TEXT
The book has long served as a container for scientific and technical knowledge. Vitruvius' ten books on architecture and Robert Hooke's book of microscopic views are striking examples. Both contain detailed illustrations which clarify the texts.
Artists have been involved for centuries in the process of creating books. They have served as illustrators for all manner of volumes (including scientific books) and have crafted beautiful bindings, alphabets, and page formats for an array of publications. But only recently have individual artists begun producing their own books as complete artistic statements.
The artist's book of today is often made by a single artist who assumes roles traditionally held by an assortment of people working collaboratively. Book artists may use unusual materials and nontraditional bindings to help convey their messages. Each element of the final book--visual content, words, and structure--helps convey the book's theme.
Science and the Artist's Book explores how science can serve as a springboard for artistic creation. A select group of nationally recognized book artists was invited to create original works of art inspired by the Heralds of Science, a 200-volume collection of classic scientific texts housed in the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, Special Collections of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. Each artist has selected one Heralds volume and has created a book which reinterprets the subject, theories, or illustrations of the scientific work. The resulting exhibition is a surprising dialogue between science and the visual arts which may offer clues to the creative process itself.
Carol Barton, co-curator
May 1995
As an electrical engineer, inventor, collector of books, and philanthropist, Bern Dibner combined the best qualities of an inquisitive thinker with the vision of a man determined to preserve the original sources of the past for future generations. In 1974, his collection of 200 Heralds and approximately 8,000 other books and 1,600 groups of manuscripts was donated to the Smithsonian Institution, to help establish a library for research in the history of science and technology.
As Dr. Dibner wrote in the preface to his catalog of the Heralds, "To live in this age of science without an awareness of its fascinating origins is to miss much of the spirit of its attainments." The Dibner Library of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, located in the National Museum of American History, makes these treasures available for consultation by scholars and others interested in learning about the history of science from the original sources.
In uniting the two distinct disciplines of art and science, this exhibition reveals some of the common threads between the creation of art and the process of scientific investigation and technological invention. Scientists and artists both require a keen sense of observation, vital powers of imagination, the persistence to achieve their visions through hard work and perseverance in the face of many challenges, and the ability to communicate their discoveries to a broader audience. The arrangement of these scientific texts side by side with their artistic offspring is a way of emphasizing aspects of creativity that are common to science as well as to art.
Diane Shaw, co-curator
May 1995
Exhibition Curators
with assistance from
The Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the Washington Project for the Arts gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the The Glen Eagles Foundation and the Smithsonian Special Exhibition Fund.
Exhibition design, editing, and production
Photography
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
De Architectura Libri Dece [Ten books on architecture]
Como, Italy, 1521
Laura Davidson
Ten Books of Vitruvius
Boston, Massachusetts, 1994
[museum board, lantern slide, book cloth, ink, transfer prints]
Agostino Ramelli
Le diverse et artificiose machine del Capitano Agostino
Ramelli [The various and ingenious machines of Captain
Agostino Ramelli]
Paris, 1588
Larry B. Thomas
No Tears for Ramelli
Atlanta, Georgia, 1994
[photocopies, rubber stamping, paper]
Luigi Galvani
De Viribus Electricitatis in Motu Musculari Commentarius
[Commentary on the effects of electricity on muscular motion]
Bologna, Italy, 1791
JoAnna Poehlmann
The Frog: Electric, Scientific, Literary, Legendary, Historical, Musical, Culinary, and
Vanishing....
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1994
[watercolor, pen and ink, rubber stamping, laser copies, ribbon,
freeze-dried leopard frog]
Alessandro Volta
"On the Electricity Excited by the Mere Contact of Conducting
Substances of Different Kinds"
in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. 90
London, 1800
M.J. Connors
On the Commotion Contact Perpetuates: A Response to
Allessandro Volta
Brooklyn, New York, 1995
[non-silver prints, acrylic, museum board, wood]
Nathaniel Bowditch
The New American Practical Navigator
Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1802
Pattie Belle Hastings
Practical Navigator
Atlanta, Georgia: Ice House Press, 1994
[monoprint, computer printing, rubber stamping, gouache, metallic
pen]
Euclid
Preclarissimus Liber Elementorum Euclidis...in Artem
Geometrie [The most excellent book of the Elements of Euclid ... on the art of geometry]
Venice, 1482
Sjoerd Hofstra
Elements of Geometry by Euclid
Brooklyn, New York, 1994
[laser printing, paper]
Marcello Malpighi
Anatome Plantarum [On the anatomy of plants]
London, 1675
Steven C. Daiber
Lillian (formerly Untitled)
Williamsburg, Massachusetts, 1994
[woodcuts, watercolor, photocopies]
Charles Robert Darwin
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
London, 1859
George Gessert
Natural Selection
Eugene, Oregon, 1994
[computer-printed handwriting, paper, inks, Cibachrome prints]
Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des
sciences, des arts et des métiers [Encyclopedia, or
descriptive dictionary of the sciences, arts and crafts]
Paris, 1751-1780
Scott L. McCarney
Diderot / Doubleday / Deconstruction
Rochester, New York, 1994
[altered book, laser prints]
Vannoccio Biringuccio
De la pirotechnia [On working with fire]
Venice, 1540
Daniel E. Kelm
Templum Elementorum [Sanctuary of the elements]
Easthampton, Massachusetts: The Wide Awake Garage, 1995
[etched glass, patinated metal, paper, laser printing]
James D. Watson and Francis H. C. Crick
"Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid"
in Nature
London, 1953
Julie Chen
Double Helix: An Essential Component of All Living Matter
Berkeley, California, 1994
[paper, colored pencil, wood, found map]
Robert Hooke
Micrographia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute
Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses
London, 1665
Karen M. Wirth
Viewpoints
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1995
[silkscreen, paper, Fresnel lenses]
Johannes Hevelius
Machinae Coelestis Pars Prior [The celestial machine: The first part]
Danzig, Poland, 1673-1679
David Horton
Celestial Wondering
New Milford, New York: Flying Pyramid Press, 1994
[wood, metal, book board, photographs, electronic and fiber-optic
elements]
Christiaan Huygens
Systema Saturnium [The Saturnian system]
The Hague, Netherlands, 1659
Timothy C. Ely
Saturnia
Portland, Oregon, 1994
[wood, handmade paper, aluminum]
Johannes de Ketham
Fasciculus Medicine [Medical treatise]
Venice, 1495
Joyce Cutler-Shaw
The Anatomy Lesson: A Collation
San Diego, California, 1995
[handmade paper, paint, board]
Marie Sklodowska Curie
"Recherches sur les substances radioactives" [Investigations into
radioactive substances] in Annales de chimie et de
physique
Paris, 1903
Susan kae Grant
Radioactive Substances
Dallas, Texas, 1995
[lead, solvent transfers]
Tycho Brahe
Epistolarum Astronomicarum Libri [Collected letters on astronomy]
Uraniborg, Denmark, 1596
Geoffrey Hendricks
QUADRANT / A Meditation on Tycho Brahe
New York, New York, 1994
[wood, brass, watercolor, ceramic, glass, stainless steel, stone, cloth, museum board]
René Descartes
Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison et
chercher la vérité dans les sciences [Discourse
on a method for guiding reason, and discovering truth in the
sciences]
Leiden, The Netherlands, 1637
Judith Mohns and François Deschamps
Cartesian Dreams
New Paltz, New York, 1994
[photo-silkscreen, paper]
Wilbur Wright
"Some Aeronautical Experiments" in Western Society of Engineers
Chicago, 1901
John Wood
Bird Wing and Plain Planes
Baltimore, Maryland, 1994
[color laser copies, laser prints, paste paper, board, thread]
Georgius Agricola
De Re Metallica [On metallurgy]
Basel, Switzerland, 1621; first published 1556
Sue Ann Robinson
Uru Pacha: World Beneath the Other
Long Beach, California, 1995
[mixed media, paper, semi-precious stones]
William Gilbert
De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete
Tellure; Physiologia Nova [Concerning the magnet, magnetic
bodies, and the Earth as a great magnet; a new science]
London, 1600
Philip Zimmermann
Elektromagnetism
Barrytown, New York: Space Heater Editions, 1995
[inkjet printing, paper, museum board]
Ernst F. F. Chladni
Entdeckungen über die Theorie des Klanges [Discoveries concerning the
theory of sound]
Leipzig, 1787
Laurie Sieverts Snyder
Sonorous Figures
Baltimore, Maryland, 1994
[silver gelatin photographs, cloth, bone closure]
Domenico Fontana
Della trasportatione dell' obelisco vaticano [On the
transportation of the Vatican obelisk]
Rome, 1590
Edward Hutchins
Moving the Obstinate
Cairo, New York, 1995
[museum board, book cloth, paper, wire, cord]
Francesco Redi
Esperienze intorno alla generazione degl'insetti
[Experiments on the generation of insects]
Florence, 1688; first published 1668
John Carrera and Sam Walker
Putrefatti [Decayed]
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995
[embossing, intaglio and letterpress printing on laid paper]
Pliny the Elder
Historia naturalis [Natural history]
Venice, 1469
M.L. Van Nice
Plinitude
Somerville, Massachusetts, 1994
[seeds, bones, insect wings, feathers, wood, leather, paper,
acrylic]
Suggested Readings:
Bern Dibner, Heralds of Science (1980)
Keith A. Smith, Structure of the Visual Book (1994)
Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Exhibition Gallery
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