A handsomely designed visual celebration of artistic and scientific depictions of insects, lizards and more across the centuries
Crawly creatures: critters, spiders, lizards, toads and, above all, insects. In the Middle Ages they were mainly associated with death and the Devil; but in the 16th and 17th centuries, with the emergence of science, people began to appreciate their beauty, and such creatures appeared in works of art, became the subject of scholarly treatises and were popular collectors' items. Artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Wenzel Jamnitzer, Jan van Kessel and Maria Sibylla Merian created beautiful depictions of these creatures.
Today, artists are still inspired by "crawly creatures" and continue to depict new ways of dealing with insects and the natural world. This richly illustrated publication, designed by Irma Boom, celebrates the wonders of small creatures and the fascinating relationship between art and science across the centuries.
Staff Choice: Maarten
Crawly Creatures is a companion book to the exhibition in the Rijksmuseum, Onderkruipsels. (I’ve read the Dutch original, but we have the English translation in our store!) The expo and the book tell the story of our changing views of “god’s lesser creatures,” the insects, snakes, worms and such, that first had negative, even evil, connotations, but later were seen as proof of god’s magnificence, as beautiful, and, with the help of new instruments and ideas, were partly at the basis of the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment. With beautiful illustrations, the essays in this (rather oversized) book tell fascinating stories about insects, religion, colonialism and scientific history, and of course about the history of art as well.