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WonderScientific illustration biography

Maria Sibylla Merian, a German-born artist and naturalist, painted each stage of an insect's life, from egg to caterpillar to butterfly, on the plant it fed on. Her 1705 book on the insects of Suriname joined close observation with art.

Maria Sibylla Merian

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The story behind the card

Merian was born in Frankfurt in 1647 into a family of engravers and was raising silkworms by the age of 13. In 1679 she published the first volume of a book showing how caterpillars transform. Many people then believed insects were born from mud or rotting matter, and illustrators usually drew dead specimens in tidy rows; her careful drawings of each life stage helped show that insects follow a fixed life cycle. In 1699, aged 52, she sold 255 of her own paintings to fund a voyage to the Dutch colony of Suriname with her daughter Dorothea. For nearly two years she collected and raised insects there, relying on enslaved Africans and Indigenous people for help and knowledge, until illness, possibly malaria, sent her home. Her Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (1705) became a landmark of natural history.

Türkçe oku
Alman asıllı ressam ve doğa bilimci Maria Sibylla Merian, böceklerin yumurtadan tırtıla, oradan kelebeğe uzanan her evresini, beslendikleri bitkinin üzerinde resmetti. Surinam böcekleri üzerine 1705'te yayımladığı kitap, dikkatli gözlemle sanatı bir araya getirdi.

Merian 1647'de Frankfurt'ta, gravürcülerden oluşan bir ailede doğdu; 13 yaşında ipekböceği besliyordu. 1679'da tırtılların nasıl başkalaştığını gösteren kitabının ilk cildini yayımladı. O dönemde pek çok kişi böceklerin çamurdan ya da çürüyen maddeden kendiliğinden oluştuğuna inanıyordu; ressamlar da genellikle ölü örnekleri düzgün sıralar hâlinde çizerdi. Merian'ın her evreyi titizlikle gösteren resimleri, böceklerin belirli bir yaşam döngüsünden geçtiğinin anlaşılmasına katkıda bulundu. 1699'da, 52 yaşındayken kendi resimlerinden 255'ini satarak kızı Dorothea ile birlikte Hollanda'nın sömürgesi Surinam'a gitti. Orada yaklaşık iki yıl böcek toplayıp besledi; bu işte köleleştirilmiş Afrikalıların ve yerli halkın yardımına ve bilgisine dayandı. Muhtemelen sıtma olan bir hastalık onu geri dönmeye zorladı. 1705'te yayımlanan Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (Surinam Böceklerinin Başkalaşımı), doğa tarihinin dönüm noktalarından biri oldu.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Maria Sibylla Merian
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