Art and Science: The Animal Kingdom

Chart humanity's fascination with insects, as advances in illustration influence the progress of the field of entomology.

View beautiful color plates, many by artists who benefited from working with fresh specimens or even the last of the living birds.

View the lithographs of Genevieve Estelle Jones, a noted illustrator within the field of ornithology.

Review animal images within the social context to determine the motivation behind to works, from a simple celebration of beauty to the desire to tame nature or add human characteristics, such as in fables.

Examine the process of translating observations of nature onto paper, with an emphasis on animal images.

View reproductions of life-size portraits of animals from the royal menagerie at Versailles.

Examine techniques in observation, through recordings in notebooks and sketches, from dozens of eminent naturalists.

Glimpse the view of North American life as held in the past through an analysis of the visual language of the times.

Explore the social context of icons of ages past, from recreations of dinosaurs, early mammals and humans as revealed through the fossil record.

Trace illustration within the field of paleontology, both scientific and popular, from the 15th century to modern times.