Assignment #1
Introduction:
This image was taken from Swammerdam, Brookes, and Goldsmith’s 1972 “The Natural History of Insects”. This was an entomology series consisting of 20 copper-plate engravings. The picture I am recreating is plate #18 from the book. You can notice the intricate detail that the illustrators put into their work both with the “sketched” engravings and the colored engraving. Lacking the tools to do a copper-engraving, I decided to use graphite and watercolor to recreate some of the “sketches” as well as the large colored bug. Having the ability to use an eraser throughout the process, I appreciate the finality of the engraving process these illustrators used. The goal of this image is mimicry, allowing the audience to have access to the types of detail that their own eyes would afford them. Although it may not be as detailed as our modern day digital cameras allow, the fact that the detail was created in the 18th century is astonishing. Some larger questions that this picture and its recreation inspire are, “how was such color achieved in an engraving process? Was there some sort of staining involved on top of the engraving process?” A closer look at the original source pages in “The Natural History of Insects” is in order to gain more insight into the types of questions the authors are trying to answer as well as how the process unfolds for them. How did they choose the 20 plates they created? What types of insects made the list, and what types didn’t?
Image #2
Introduction:
This image was taken from Ramon y Cajal’s 1899 “Texture of the Nervous System of Man and the Vertebrates”. This book looked at the nervous system anatomy and physiology from a unique viewpoint; that each unit studied was a discrete and independent entity, working together to from an entire system. The book mainly consisted of explanations and theory, but was supplemented with diagrams such as this that were based on the staining of neurons, glia, etc. through Camillo Golgi’s silver chromate technique. These diagrams are presumably replicas of the original stains, although none are included in the volume. This detail brings a rather large question into play, “to what extent are the diagrams in this book simplified from the original stainings?” In order to answer this question, research will have to be made into Golgi’s original silver chromate staining, which is undoubtedly published in some scientific journal or another. The image I chose is a diagram of a fish and mammalian spinal ganglion cell. It was presumably made with pen and ink, a representation of a silver chromate staining that is presumably out in the world somewhere, but I chose to recreate it with pencil and watercolor for simplicity. Another question that stands out when thinking about this image is, “what sort of microscopic objective was used in order to get the resolution seen here?” Today, we have many different fancy stains in the laboratory to look at different cells, tissues, proteins, etc. The simplicity of the staining technique that inspired this collection is actually quite shocking and speaks to the roots of what science should be. You do not need fancy tools to ask and answer questions, just a curious mind.
FIELD NOTE 1 OF 3
Date: 2/11/2020
People Involved: Myself (with the moral support of my friends)
Location: Sid Rich Commons
Reconstruction conditions:
It was extremely well lit with artificial yellow lighting. It was a cool evening outside, but this was irrelevant for the inside conditions I experienced. My surroundings were rather noisy, although I had headphones to drown out some of the noise. My friends enjoyed periodically distracting me.
Time and duration of reconstruction: Approximately 2 hours, from 6:45-8:45 p.m.
Equipment and tools used:
Number 2 mechanical pencil, white rubber eraser, watercolor paint, 4 paintbrushes (1 thin and small, 1 thin and large, 1 flat and small, 1 flat and large), watercolor paper…the watercolor supplies were all borrowed from my wonderfully artistic and generous friend Fernanda
Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:
When first looking at the image to get an overall feel for what I was about to take on, I found that the large, fully colored bug drew my attention first. Its colors were earthy, yet muted. I tried to separate its body into many smaller, general shapes. The torso was a sort of cone, the wings were oblong, etc. The surrounding pencil sketches intimidated me moreso than the colored bug, as they were faint and seemingly intricate. Looking back at my image versus the original, I am noticing the contrast between my recreation’s white background and the originals golden brown. I think that when I go back to add additional details (this will be documented in field note #3)
Prior knowledge that you have:
I have no prior knowledge about this volume of the natural history of insects. I do know that to be considered an insect, the animal must have 6 legs and either 1 or 2 sets of wings! The colored insect I recreated did indeed have 6 legs (though two were covered by the wings) and 2 sets of wings. I also know that insects have 3 main “parts”, the thorax, abdomen, and head. This is about the entirety of my knowledge of entomology. I also have no prior knowledge of watercolor painting, but for some reason the colors of this picture made me think “watercolor” could be the best form of medium to capture the essence of the image.
Reflection on your practice:
As I stated earlier, the colored bug drew my attention first. For some reason, I thought that because of this, it would be the easiest part to recreate, with the pencil sketches being much more difficult due to their faintness and intricacy. I came to find out that the pencil sketching was the most natural part, with the watercolor painting feeling forced and unknown. When trying to recreate the color schemes of the bug, I found myself unsatisfied with the lack of color pallet at my disposal. However, when recreating one of the pencil sketches, I feel like I was really able to recreate something meaningful. I could separate it into distinct pieces and appreciate how each part fit with the whole. I feel like this pencil sketching allowed me to come into a similar mindset to what the original artist was feeling during their creation process. When I was trying to recreate detail through watercolor, I found myself wondering how the original artist could capture so much reality and intricacy.
Photos/video documenting process:
**Images/videos documenting the process will be shown/given to you on Tuesday in class.**
Final product:
Questions that arise:
What is the process of embellishing with a copper-plate?
What sort of lighting was present during the original creation? The colors of this polyneura ducalis (cicada) are quite interesting in my opinion…I have only ever seen black/brown cicadas.
What is the process of labeling (“hm” “hc” “T1” “b”, etc) in the pencil sketches? Is it consistent?
FIELD NOTE 2 OF 3
Date: 2/11/2020
People Involved: Myself (with the moral support of my friends)
Location: Sid Rich 6th floor, room of one of my guy friends.
Reconstruction conditions:
I was in a dorm room sitting at the desk of one of my friends while 3 of my male friends sat on their couch and played “Mario Sunshine”. The lighting was less bright than the commons (where field note 1 took place), but it seemed even more yellow. There was the noise of my friends playing their video game in the background as well as “popular” music playing on one of their speakers.
Time and duration of reconstruction:
Approximately 1.25 hours, from 9 p.m.- 10:15 pm
Equipment and tools used:
All of the same equipment as field note 1: Number 2 mechanical pencil, white rubber eraser, watercolor paint, 4 paintbrushes (1 thin and small, 1 thin and large, 1 flat and small, 1 flat and large), watercolor paper…the watercolor supplies were all borrowed from my wonderfully artistic and generous friend Fernanda
Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:
I immediately noticed how dark (read: dense?) the cell bodies were; they really seemed to jump off the page. I got a kick out of the different shapes of the fish and mammalian ganglion; the fish being longer and thinner, and the mammalian being rounder and fatter. I spent quite a while trying to match these proportions correctly. I will say that when one of my friends looked at the picture, they said that they were getting, “ocean/anatomy vibes”…pretty accurate if you ask me. An ocean of cell bodies to depict the nervous system anatomy. The weaving and spiraling cell projections made me periodically lose tract of where I was at, making me slightly frustrated. This process felt more straightforward and thus relaxing than the insect recreation.
Prior knowledge that you have:
I have taken a bunch of neuroscience classes that have talked about the discoveries of Cajal and Golgi. I knew, even prior to this class, that Golgi provided the silver chromate staining protocol that Cajal later used to perform experiments which supported his hypothesis of a discrete network of cells. I also know that the nobel prize which was awarded to both of them was the first time a nobel prize has ever been shared. After reading about them from a completely different perspective in this class, I now know the power struggle and awkwardness that folded itself between the shared glory. I know a tiny bit about ganglia; they are actually quite complicated. I typically think of them as relay centers of sensory information, with many cells synapsing onto them. Since they are sensory, they are typically thought of as part of the peripheral nervous system, but the prescence of “basal ganglia” in deep brain regions makes me slightly confused about the naming. Some of the most common ganglion are the retinal ganglion cells that receive visual information from photoreceptors. These retinal ganglion cells use the information coming from photoreceptors to establish a receptive field and allow us to perceive contrast and edges in a rather complicated manner with excitation and inhibition.
Reflection on your practice:
This recreation process was much simpler than the insect one. Although I realize this image itself is simpler, I feel like my background in neuroscience allowed me to see details which I might not have picked up. For example, in B, I was able to pick out the individual dendrites coming from each cell body that sit in the central layer of vertical lines. To start the process, I recreated the general image with pencil on watercolor paper. Although the colors of the image didn’t scream to me watercolor, I thought that I would be able to add good black contrast in the cell bodies if I used watercolor, and so I did. The entire image is pencil except for the black cell bodies…and I really like it this way. I enjoyed that this image had a figure caption that is more reminiscent of today’s science, and I enjoyed writing it down as part of the recreation.
Photos/video documenting process:
**Images/videos documenting the process will be shown/given to you on Tuesday in class.**
Final product:
Questions that arise:
Are these ganglia dorsal or ventral?
How much simplification/generalization does this diagram suffer from in comparison to the original silver chromate staining? What variability was ignored?
Does “course followed by sensory excitation” mean that the signal is afferent? Or are they trying to decide what cells are excitable and what cells are inhibitory?
Is the watermark a stamp or hand-drawn? I am assuming this diagram was hand-drawn but I guess I don’t really know.
FIELD NOTE 3 OF 3
Date: 2/12/2020
People Involved: Myself
Location: Sid Rich 6th floor lobby
Reconstruction conditions:
I was sitting on the 6th floor lobby, at a table all by myself. It was dark and cold outside, but inside was well lit and decently warm.
Time and duration of reconstruction:
Approximately 1 hour, from 11:30pm-12:30am
Equipment and tools used:
All of the same equipment as field notes 1+2: Number 2 mechanical pencil, white rubber eraser, watercolor paint, 4 paintbrushes (1 thin and small, 1 thin and large, 1 flat and small, 1 flat and large), watercolor paper…the watercolor supplies were all borrowed from my wonderfully artistic and generous friend Fernanda
Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:
For some reason, I felt very anxious and rushed, and this definitely translated to the quality of my work. Unlike the first time I worked on the picture, nothing seemed to be working; the color brown I was mixing wasn’t turning out right and I was having trouble feeling a good grip on my pencil. As for what things looked like, I took great care in noticing the brownish/orangish/yellowish background. I noticed that the watercolor paper was curling up as I tried to paint, presumably because of the previous paint that had already dried. This made me anxious.
Prior knowledge that you have:
I have the same prior knowledge as previously stated in field note 2. I will add that since I was coming to this recreation for the second time (the next day) I had more of a procedural/episodic familiarity with the image and itself. It seems that this almost hindered me, because it turned out really awful.
Reflection on your practice:
This time was the second recreation process of the insect picture. I decided that I wanted to paint the background a light brown in order to make it more authentic looking. I am wondering if the brownish color of the picture is a product of age or intention, because in my case it ended up being intention. I also added another pencil sketch. This time, I noticed that all the separate drawings in the picture had a number that seemed to symbolize some sort of order. The colored bug was labeled #1, and there were 9 drawings/representations in total, all numbered. I could not figure out how the sketches were ordered, but they definitely were. I ended up seriously screwing up my previous pencil sketch with the brown background I painted, and I am quite upset about it. The picture looked so much better before this second take. I put a bit too much brown and it covered up a great majority of my previous work. I guess this is what I get for my artificial recreation. In recreating sketch #7, I appreciated the types of shading that some of the sketches had, and others lacked. The original sketch I recreated, sketch #6, did not have any shading
Photos/video documenting process:
**Images/videos documenting the process will be shown/given to you on Tuesday in class.**
Final Produt (so ugly):
Questions that arise:
What do the numbers assigned to each sketch represent?
Is the brown background due to age or intention?