Animals: Art, Science and Sound at the British Library
American Barn Owl in John James Audubon The Birds of America. Photo: Birgitta Huse
“The exhibition visit is enriching from a language perspective. Various books on display are not only written in a language other than English but they are bilingual.”
“New techniques were employed for the study of animals and documentation whenever available. One of my exhibition favourites is the X-Ray of fish made by Josef Maria Eder and Eduard Valenta in Austria in 1896, only one year after the discovery of X-rays by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen.”
“The exhibition furthermore addresses the importance and value of knowledge. Where there is a lack of knowledge of facts, imagination takes over.”
“The exhibition Animals: Art, Science and Sound is accompanied by a homonymous book publication.”
Animals: Art, Science and Sound at the British Library
Book Illustrations, Horse Locomotion, Fish X-Rays and Birdsong Recordings
★★★★★
WRITTEN BY DR BIRGITTA HUSE, 03.06.2023
The largest sheets of paper manufactured in the nineteenth century, known as double elephant folios, were used to produce the book The Birds of America. Its production took twelve years. John James Audubon revolutionised ornithological illustration in the late 1820s with the life-size reproductions of all the birds of the United States and its territories. Visiting the exhibition Animals: Art, Science and Sound at the British Library we are able to admire Audubon’s life-sized American Barn Owls. One should not dwell on this owl illustration for too long though, as it is just the starting point of a fascinating journey. Many more exceptional objects are waiting to be discovered in this show. One of them is Leonardo da Vinci’s “Codex Arundel”, Florence 1500-1508, about the flight of birds.
The British Library invites to the exhibition with the following statement: “Get ready to travel across deserts and rainforests, deep into the oceans, and up in the skies as we follow a centuries-long journey of animal discovery through sound recordings, manuscripts and artworks.” The exhibition guide functions as a tour guide as it introduces the four main exhibition sections of “Darkness”, “Water”, “Land” and “Air”. The different colour designs of each section make visitor orientation easy and enable to “get lost” in studying the objects and their explanations. Admirers of books, letters, drawings, sculptures, technique, environmental issues, history of science, photography, music, and sound will find especially interesting pieces alike.
Exhibition view. Photo: Birgitta Huse
Old and new scientific knowledge is presented side by side. The engraving of the head of a great white shark for example is part of the dissection report written by Danish anatomist Nicolaus Steno which was published in Amsterdam in 1669. The book near to the shark engraving is from 1981. In it the leading marine biologist and “Shark Lady” Eugene Clark explores the misunderstanding of sharks. This coexistence of old and new knowledge in printed form somehow resembles travelling to a certain country’s ancient architectural treasures and experiencing today’s folklore and culture at the same time.
Johann Rösel von Rosenhof’s Historiam Naturalis Ranarum Nostratium (Natural History of Frogs of this Land). Photo Birgitta Huse
The exhibition visit is enriching from a language perspective. Various books on display are not only written in a language other than English but they are bilingual. The text in Johann Rösel von Rosenhof’s Historiam Naturalis Ranarum Nostratium (Natural History of Frogs of this Land), Nuremberg, 1753-58, for example presents information in Latin and German written in two columns on the same page. Personally, I discovered that a good number of the extraordinary works on display were created in Germany or by scientists and artists of German origin like Maria Sibylla Merian.
Maria Sibylla Merian is one of the few famous women being acknowledged for their works in animal studies. Merian, the pioneering scientist, travelled to Suriname in South America in 1699 to study and record the life cycles of insects at a time when most people never saw other countries and less so other continents during their lifetime. Another example of a woman making a valuable contribution to the field of animal studies is Sarah Bowdich. She is to be remembered for her meticulous colour documentation of fish published in The fresh waterfishes of Great Britain, London, 1838. She drew from living fish to capture the correct colour of the animals. Other observers and artists before her had worked on dead fish, a method which led to rather fantastically coloured illustrations with little resemblance to any real species in the worst case. An impressive example are the drawings of fish by Samuel Fallours published in 1718 in Louis Renard’s Poissons, écrevisses et crabs.
An X-ray of fish. Josef Maria Eder and Eduard Valenta, Austria 1896. Photo Birgitta Huse
New techniques were employed for the study of animals and documentation whenever available. One of my exhibition favourites is the X-Ray of fish made by Josef Maria Eder and Eduard Valenta in Austria in 1896, only one year after the discovery of X-rays by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen. Photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s horse locomotion, published years later in 1887 in Animal Locomotion: An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movement is fascinating to look at until today.
Our sense of hearing is especially tuned into while following the trail through the exhibition. We hear owl call, water sounds from a brook to ocean waves, whales singing and birds we are familiar with as they live in near to us in our parks and gardens. We learn about certain animals’ sound by picking up earphones which offer a kind of a one-to-one conversation with a whale or the last Kaua’I ‘ō ‘ō bird on the Hawaiian archipelago. Listening to a haddock might trigger a different approach to our next fish ‘n’ chips meal.
To follow the invitation of the British Library and to delve into the animal world via art, science and sound is definitely worthwhile and an eye opening one.
Babur, Baburnama (Memoirs of Babur), Northern India, 1590-3. Photo: Birgitta Huse
The extraordinary objects displayed do not only inform about the long history of human documentation of knowledge about animals. Rather most of these objects which are rarely seen provoke an even stronger and more profound interest in the world we are sharing with so many other creatures. The exhibition clearly demonstrates what we humans have done and are doing with our planet as well as the consequences of our actions. It reminds us of the fact that everyone of us can make a difference – often small things really do matter.
The exhibition furthermore addresses the importance and value of knowledge. Where there is a lack of knowledge of facts, imagination takes over. An impressive example for this is the phantasy colouring of fish on display. Not being able to hear the voice of a haddock should not be confused with thinking that haddocks would not produce sounds. It is significant for everyone to know as many facts as possible about our environment – not only regarding animals. This will enhance the ability to firstly unmask disinformation and secondly to partake in thinking about and putting into action feasible solutions for environmental problems which are palpable for everyone now.
The exhibition Animals: Art, Science and Sound is accompanied by a homonymous book publication. This book does not only offer the information presented at the British Library show. With its many double sided, appealing and wonderfully coloured images and more detailed information the publication rather offers itself for repeated reference and deeper reflection. This compilation of the state of the art of the documentation of knowledge about animals also addresses our sense of hearing. QR codes are included, and animal sounds and voices can be listened to. The sounds available have an addictive potential. My personal highlight, again, is the sound of a haddock which already sparked my fascination while visiting the exhibition. “By taking the global range of material held in the British Library as its focus, this book travels through nearly 2000 years of human history. […] In bringing these items together for the first time this book aims to explore how art, science and sound have influenced our understanding of the animals with which we share this planet. [… It allows] readers to experience the myriad of media, formats and subjects that are found across the British Library’s rich zoological collection.” is explained in the introduction. I think that anyone with an interest in the relationship of humans and (other) animals and a love for paintings, illustrations, writing, sounds as well as technology will love this book.
Animals: Art, Science and Sound can be seen at The British Library until 28th August 2023.