Art Meets Science

On Saturday my husband and I went to the Berkshire Museum http://berkshiremuseum.org in Pittsfield, MA. Peter is fond of this museum as it has the triceratops models used for a television production of perhaps his favorite childhood book, The Enormous Egg, and we both like the way they include art and science in one museum. We saw a show on ancient Egypt, with a row of plaster casts of heads found in mummies: science has figured out a way to use what's found to suggest face features. A smaller show featured Nancy Graves's depictions of camels in two dimensions, three dimensions, and film. I loved the artist's statement (click to enlarge):



What do you think? Maybe Beatrix Potter would have nodded. She studied animals and plants long before using them in stories. Here's something from the sketchbook she kept when she was ten years old. http://www.peterrabbit.com/potters-world-potters-art-childhood.asp



And I was introduced to the work of Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) http://www.jeannineatkins.com/books/girls.htm in the National Museum of Women in the Arts http://www.nmwa.org/, but what I love is not only her gorgeous paintings, but how she drew as a way to explore science, studying and breaking new ground into knowledge of metamorphosis and the interdependency of plants and animals.