Before Disenchantment

Images of Exotic Animals and Plants in the Early Modern World

Peter Mason

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781861894373
• eBook ISBN: 9781861897480
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

Imagine barnacle geese—creaturesthat begin life as leaves on a tree growing above water, but turn into small birds as soon as they fall in. Orthe Lamb of Tartary that gestates inside a large gourd-like fruit. These are just some of the animal and plant hybrids imagined by early modern explorers and artists to describe unfamiliar flora and fauna.

In Before Disenchantment, Peter Mason explores how naturalists grappled with the problem of representing exotic plants and animals, turning an analytic eye on the sketches of German adventurer Caspar Schmalkalden, the skilled artistic renderings of Peter Paul Rubens, the observations of Dutch beachcomber Adriaen Coenen, and the antiquarian pursuits of Nicola Fabri de Peiresc, among others.

Featuringone hundred illustrations of these unusual and captivating creatures—from camel-sheep to races of monopods and red-haired dwarves— Before Disenchantment goes beyond orthodox histories of scientific illustration and champions a sense of wonder often lost in the modern world.

Table of contents

• Before Disenchantment Cover
• Imprint page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1: Marvels of the Canaries
• 2: Birds that Grow on Trees
• 3: Hybrids, Prodigies and Monstrous Races
• 4: Americana in the Exoticorum libri decem of Charles de l’Écluse
• 5: Americana in the Enterprise of the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome
• 6: The Camel-sheep
• 7: The Sloth Proceeds
• Epilogue
• References
• Acknowledgements
• Photo acknowledgements
• Index