Papillons Européens
<p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Papillons Europ</span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">éens: Nocturnes, Crépusculaires, et Diurnes </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">demonstrates a method of recording specimens that predates photography: the </span><a href="https://herbariumworld.wordpress.com/2017/10/16/nature-printing-in-the-19th-century/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nature print</a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. With a </span>nature print<span style="font-weight: 400;">, the specimen itself is used to make an impression so that, as with photography, there is an </span><a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/what-is-photography">indexical</a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> relationship between the object and its representation. This example, from 1890, shows that nature printing continued to be used well after the introduction of photographic technologies. Here, </span>watercolour<span style="font-weight: 400;"> paints have been added to the prints.</span></p>
<p>Nature printing<span style="font-weight: 400;"> could also be achieved photographically, a process that was popular in the early decades of photography. The British botanist </span><a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/anna-atkins-cyanotypes-the-first-book-of-photographs.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Anna Atkins</a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> is well known for her prints (<a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3132">cyanotypes</a>) of botanical specimens</span><span>. Atkins published her photographs in 1843 as <a href="https://nhm.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/view/BookReaderViewer/44NHM_INST/12190875980002081" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i>Photographs of British Algae: cyanotype impressions</i></a>, and is today considered one of the first to produce a photographically-illustrated book. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /><strong><br /><br /></strong><br /></span></p>
creator unknown
[1890]
34.0 x 24.0 cm
QL 543 P36 1890z folio
Encyclopédie
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The twenty-eight volumes of the <i>Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une societé de gens de lettres</i></span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">(also known as the <i>Encyclopédie</i></span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">) </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">was originally published in Paris between 1751 and 1772. The edition of the <i>Encyclopédie </i>held by Bruce Peel Special Collections was published in Geneva from 1771 to 1776. <br /><br />As an attempt to gather together and order all of the knowledge of the world, the </span><a href="https://library.wustl.edu/a-revolutionary-encyclopedia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Encyclopédie</span></i></a><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">is a representative </span><a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/rococo-neoclassicism/rococo/a/a-beginners-guide-to-the-age-of-enlightenment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Enlightenment</a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> project (Bull 6-9). </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">With its eleven volumes of illustrations created by copperplate </span><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/e/engraving" target="_blank" rel="noopener">engravings</a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Encyclopédie </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">also provides an example of how illustrations could be reproduced and disseminated prior to the discovery of photography. The images and texts were printed in separate volumes since they required two different techniques for printing. <br /><br />One of the plates shown here portrays a print shop, and shows how such illustrations would have been created. The print has an</span> <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/what-is-photography">indexical</a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> relationship with the inked plate, but unlike a photograph, it does not hold an indexical relationship to t</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">he thing that-is-seen in the illustration. <br /><br /></span>Another plate, captioned "Optique," explains the <a href="http://www.photographyhistoryfacts.com/photography-development-history/camera-obscura-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">principles of the camera obscura</a>, an enclosed box that could project the view from the outside world into its interior. The earliest photographs were created by combining the camera obscura with light-sensitive materials that could fix the view as a stable image. Note in particular the two pictures at the bottom of the page; the picture on the left demonstrates the principles of the camera obscura, while the picture on the right portrays a portable camera obscura with an added lens. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me5ke7agyOw&t=145s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Camera obscuras</a> like this one had been in use since at least the sixteenth century.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: 400;">Browse the <i>Encyclopédie</i>'s articles and plates at the <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project</a>.</span></p>
Denis Diderot (author)
Jean Le Rond d'Alembert (author)
Pierre Mouchon (author)
1771
43.0 x 26.0 cm
AE 25 E56 1771 folio