The “Nonsense” Botanical Illustrations of Victorian Artist-Poet Edward Lear (1871–77)

Because the Vic­to­ri­an period, Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” has been, for gen­er­a­tion upon gen­er­a­tion within the Eng­lish-speak­ing world, the sort of poem that one sim­ply is aware of, whether or not one remem­bers actu­al­ly hav­ing learn it or not. As with most such works that seep so per­ma­nent­ly into the cul­ture, it does­n’t fairly rep­re­despatched its creator in full. Although kind of of a chunk with his cel­e­brat­ed “non­sense” verse (which I personally learn in little one­hood, greater than a cen­tu­ry after its ini­tial pub­li­ca­tion), it hints solely imprecise­ly at his intense artis­tic interact­ment with the nat­ur­al world, via the obser­va­tion and stay­ly por­tray­al of which he made his identify as an illus­tra­tor.

“Lear was an atten­tive and knowledgeable learn­er of Dar­win; he labored with John Gould, the nat­ur­al-his­to­ry entre­pre­neur who had actu­al­ly picked aside the vari­eties of finch that Dar­win had introduced again from the Galá­pa­gos Islands,” writes the New York­er’s Adam Gop­nik, not­ing that his work evi­dences a Lin­naean obses­sion “with the pow­er of nam­ing, with stick­ing a tag on a factor which provides it a spot at, and on, the desk.” Lear gave Latin names to at the very least two actual species of par­rots, however he additionally fab­ri­cat­ed such chimeras as Phat­tfa­cia Stu­pen­da, Arm­chairia Com­fort­a­bilis, Tigerlil­ia Ter­ri­bilis, examination­ples of which he additionally illus­trates in his Non­sense Botany collection of the eigh­teen-sev­en­ties.

Lear’s “pen­chant for the nat­ur­al world,” says The Dilet­tante, formed his “knack for invent­ing ridicu­lous land­scapes and anthro­po­mor­phiz­ing all sort of crea­tures and objects. The result’s a sur­re­al Leare­an world of Scroobi­ous Pips, Quan­gle Wan­gles, and Nice Grom­boo­lian Plains.” His “fan­ci­ful re-sculpt­ing of the phys­i­cal world is bril­liant­ly exem­pli­fied” in his Non­sense Botany, with its “sketch­es and enter­tain­ing cap­tions learn as a tax­on­o­my of incon­gru­ous plant-crea­tures.” Whether or not on the Pub­lic Area Overview or Venture Guten­berg, you’ll be able to gaze upon all of them and expe­ri­ence not simply gentle amuse­ment, but additionally a sort of aston­ish­ment at Lear’s pecu­liar tal­ent: he does­n’t “discover the amaz­ing within the ordi­nary,” as Gop­nik places it; “he finds the ordi­nary within the amaz­ing.”

through Pub­lic Area Overview

Relat­ed con­tent:

Behold an Inter­ac­tive On-line Edi­tion of Eliz­a­beth Twining’s Illus­tra­tions of the Nat­ur­al Orders of Crops (1868)

Emi­ly Dickinson’s Herbar­i­um: A Beau­ti­ful Dig­i­tal Edi­tion of the Poet’s Pressed Crops & Circulate­ers Is Now On-line

Hor­tus Eystet­ten­sis: The Beau­ti­ful­ly Illus­trat­ed E-book of Crops That Modified Botan­i­cal Artwork In a single day (1613)

The Bio­di­ver­si­ty Her­itage Library Makes 150,000 Excessive-Res Illus­tra­tions of the Nat­ur­al World Free to Down­load

An Ani­mat­ed Learn­ing of “The Jab­ber­wocky,” Lewis Carroll’s Non­sense Poem That Some­how Man­ages to Make Sense

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embrace the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the ebook The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll via Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­ebook.