The German zoologist Ernst Haeckel was an early proponent of the theory of evolution, and in the 19th century he himself proclaimed sea squirts to be “art forms of nature”.
Image: Lower Saxony State and University Library in Göttingen (GR2 ZOOL VI, 3904 RARA, Taf. XVIII)
The world of science would be almost incomprehensible without graphics, drawings or photos. But how can ecosystems, quantum theory or genetics be presented in an understandable way?
Whe hasn’t seen it again and again in the past two and a half years, this gray sphere with red tips and small orange nubs on a rough surface? The image went around the world: created using an electron microscope, partly colored and published by the American health authorities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The structures on it, especially the spikes in red, have been memorized so well that we could probably all make a sketch that would show SARS-CoV-2. So it is no surprise that this image of the coronavirus is found in the chapter on the 20th century “and beyond”, when a large-format book of more than 400 pages is dedicated to the history of scientific illustration.
The hope that the author Anna Escardó, in collaboration with Julius Weidemann, would now have published a work with the Kölner Taschen Verlag that actually combines all the important scientific graphics or drawings since the 15th century cannot be fulfilled with the best will in the world. She had to have the courage to leave gaps, and the selection of more than 300 illustrations must not have been easy, of which only a fraction can be seen on this page. Restricting oneself to just a few historical examples from medicine and some natural sciences, having to decide against many others, required criteria far from objectivity.