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


Part One

    Smithsonian Institution Libraries
    Exhibition Gallery
    May 26-November 3, 1995

Part Two

    Washington Project for the Arts
    May 26-September 2, 1995
and again at the
    Smithsonian Institution Libraries
    Exhibition Gallery
    November 17, 1995-May 28, 1996

Science and the Artist's Book

ARTISTS CAN find inspiration in almost any subject, and science offers the artist an especially fertile field of exploration. Scientific images--views of the human body, sketches of remarkable inventions, charts of outer space--can be raw materials for an artist's imagination. And processes by which scientists make their discoveries are analogous to methods used by artists in their pursuit of solutions to creative problems. Both scientists and artists rely on close observation, experimentation, and innovative thinking for results. When scientists and artists communicate their discoveries through combinations of images and words, they establish a link between the two fields through the shared format of the book.

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


Heralds of Science

THIS EXHIBITION takes its inspiration from the Heralds of Science, a collection of works in the history of science once owned by Bern Dibner and now part of the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Special Collections Department. These books, pamphlets, and journal articles were selected by Dr. Dibner for their role in proclaiming new scientific truths and concepts. The Heralds, drawn from the classical periods of Greece and Rome, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the modern era, are books that set forth ideas and explanations for all manner of natural phenomena or describe inventions which have forever changed human life and society around the world, such as Alessandro Volta's description of the pile battery or Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.

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

    Carol Barton and Diane Shaw

with assistance from

    Ellen B. Wells and Robin F. Moore

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

    Office of Exhibits Central, Smithsonian Institution

Photography

    Office of Printing and Photographic Services, Smithsonian Institution
    D. James Dee
    Richard Klein


Part One


Architecture

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]


Engineering

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]


Physics

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]


Physics

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]


Mathematics

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]


Mathematics

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]


Biology

Marcello Malpighi
Anatome Plantarum [On the anatomy of plants]
London, 1675

Steven C. Daiber
Lillian (formerly Untitled)
Williamsburg, Massachusetts, 1994
[woodcuts, watercolor, photocopies]


Biology

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]


Technology

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]


Chemistry

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]


Biochemistry

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]


Microscopy

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]


Astronomy

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]



Part Two


Medicine

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]


Biochemistry

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]


Astronomy

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]


Scientific Methodology

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]


Aeronautics

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]


Metallurgy

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]


Physics

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]


Physics

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]


Engineering

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]


Biology

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]


Scientific Methodology

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

For comments
libmail@sil.si.edu


Washington Project for the Arts
400 7th Street, NW
Washington, DC 2004

For inquiries call
202-347-4813


Printed brochure designed by Carol Barton
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