MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN DOODLE

Google doodle celebrates Maria Sibylla Merian's 366th birthday.

As a pioneering artist of science, she was a revolution and a revelation.
Maria Sibylla Merian was attracted to insects from a young age, and soon they, in turn, is drawn by her. Metamorfeer childhood meters of the silk worm, Merian has emerged as a barrier-breaking woman in full, an emerging 17th century illustrator of flora and fauna rendered not only art, but also newfound knowledge.

MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN

"In my youth, I spent my time investigating insects," the naturalist wrote in the preface of her book "" Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (Metamorphosis of the insects of Suriname). "At the beginning, I started with silkworms in my hometown Frankfurt., I realized that the other caterpillars beautiful butterflies or moths, and that the silkworms did the same. This led me all the caterpillars I could find to see how changed to raise them. "
Daughter to a famous copper engraver / publisher (Matthäus Merian), stepdaughter to a quiet life botanical painting (Jacob Marell), Merian was the medium born and bred. She followed her fascination with science at a time when few women enter the profession, and pursued her passion for scientific illustration at a time when so relatively little about pupating insects are known or documented.

 

Google doodle celebrates Maria Sibylla Merian's 366th birthday

By tirelessly studying and drawing the pupa, and crystallized further our understanding of errors and bushes, leaves and larvae. And the more his journey to new sites, looking at each new species across an ocean, the more of a pioneer in her field.

On 28, Merian her first book of natural illustration ("Neues Blumenbuch") published, and shortly thereafter her caterpillar book, the daughter of a carpenter metamorphosis relieved by her richly tinted brass pressure.

In 1699, the divorced Merian (with his daughter Dorothea) trip to the Dutch colony of every of the South American species Suriname to study, drawing her findings for two years - sometimes through dangerous journeys gained for malaria forced her house . The result, in 1705, the book ("Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium") which rests so much of her fame and reputation.

"Using her sharp observation skills, Maria Sibylla Merian revolutionized both botany and zoology," writes the Washington, DC-based National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA).

"She was truly an exceptional artist and naturalist," said Washington's Dumbarton Oaks Research Library Rare Book Collection, which took part in 2012 in NMWA's joint Citywide exhibition of women artists Merian's work, influences and legacy.

Today, Google celebrates the great naturalist and artist with a home-page Doodle to mark the 366 anniversary of her Frankfurt birth. (Now enough Notice and you will see "Google" spelled out in the midst of the scene turns green.)

Merian died in Amsterdam in 1717. Her brilliant, and brilliantly tinted contributions to the science and art - a centuries-long "butterfly effect" - forever remain in full bloom.