Assignment #1

Field Notes

Introductory description:

I recreated Jan Swammerdam’s image of A. submaculata, the insect denoted with the number one on Plate 24. Plate 24 is one of 52 copper plates by 17th-century Dutch naturalist and microscopist Jan Swammerdam in the Bybel der Natuure, or The Book of Nature, a posthumously published book of Swammerdam’s visual and textual descriptions of the behavior, anatomy, and development of insects. Swammerdam would first use red crayon or ink to draw his observations of insect specimens from a microscope. He subsequently overlaid black ink or pencil over this initial drawing. Following this, a copper engraving was made and watercolors were used to add color to the prints of Swammerdam’s illustrations. In my first two field notes, I describe the process through which I recreated the image of A. submaculata on Plate 24, using red colored pencil, followed by black pen and then watercolors. I had initially wanted to emulate the process of copper engraving with a braille stylus and cardboard. I failed to achieve the refinement of prints of Swammerdam’s illustrations via this method, as the stylus created large punctures in the cardboard. To emulate the copper engraving process, I treated the lines I created with the black pen on a piece of paper as the lines I would create with a burin on a copper sheet. In my third field note, I describe the process through which I recreated the photo of an Aphana using colored pencils, as an extension beyond my recreation of a print of Swammerdam’s illustration of an Aphana.

 Before you start, provide answers to the following:

• What is this image for? Where is the image coming from? What do we know of its source? Its audience?

Plate 24 features two insects: towards the top is an image of Membracis foliata and towards the bottom is an image of Aphana submaculata. Plate 24 is one of 52 copper plates by

17th-century Dutch naturalist and microscopist Jan Swammerdam in the Bybel der Natuure, or The Book of Nature, a posthumously published book of Swammerdam’s visual and textual descriptions of the behavior, anatomy, and development of insects.[1] Matthew Cobb, Professor of Zoology at Manchester University and a historian of science, claims The Book of Nature to be the most in depth and encompassing work on insects of its time (refer to Table 1, from Matthew Cobb’s piece on The Book of Nature).

While studying medicine at the University of Leiden, Swammerdam was an active researcher. In The Book of Nature, Swammerdam argues against spontaneous generation, a hypothetical process through which living organisms develop from nonliving matter (Cobb, 2000, 126). In particular, he seeks to demonstrate in The Book of Nature that insects are not the products of spontaneous generation, a widely accepted idea during Swammerdam’s time. Insects, he asserts in the book, are as complex as higher organisms. To Swammerdam, the complexity of insects, which he uncovered through dissection and observation under the microscope, was “proof of the glory of the Creator” (Cobb, 2000, 126). He also realized through his entomological studies that such beauty and order “could not be a product of chance [and] must, therefore, be divine” (Cobb, 2000, 126).

Materials & measurements

• Can we identify all the materials needed to make it? Are there multiple varieties of tools used to make it? What is the stability of a material over time?

Drawing from his medical training, Swammerdam also used a technique involving the injection of hot wax to preserve anatomical specimens in his entomological studies. The injection of wax allowed softer body parts to retain their structure (Buettner, 2007).

Swammerdam used bead lenses that were 1–2 mm in diameter to observe the behavior and anatomical structure of insects. As detailed by Cobb, Swammerdam used single-lens microscopes, some of which he made himself (refer to Figure 1 above, from Cobb) and others made by Jan Hudde and Samuel Musschenbroek (Buettner, 2007). Cobb likens the single-lens microscope to a small magnifying glass (Cobb, 2000, 124). The maximum magnification achieved by the single-lens microscopes during Swammerdam’s time was likely around 150X (Cobb, 2000, 124). Swammerdam only did his observations under direct natural light, maximizing the amount of light that would reach the lens of the microscope (Cobb, 2000, 124). To carry out his dissections, he used scissors, a small saw, a penknife, feathers, glass tubes, tweezers, needles, and forceps (Cobb, 2000, 124).  He additionally developed a method to inflate vessels and remove tissues, which involves blowing air down a glass tube (Cobb, 2000, 124). Swammerdam recognized the limitations of using the single-lens microscope. For instance, he informs readers that some parts of his images in The Book of Nature were not drawn to scale (Cobb, 2000, 124). He cautions readers that the lens of the microscope must “‘be carefully managed, for as it is turned one way or another, different things are seen: one cannot bring the lens nearer, or remove it further, by the least distance, but something is immediately perceived by the sight, which was not observed before’” (Cobb, 2000, 124).

Swammerdam made drawings of his insect specimens first using red crayon or red ink. He would then complete the drawings using black ink or pencil (Cobb, 2000, 124; Neaves & Davidson, 2002). Swammerdam’s drawings were then transferred to copper plates for printing. It is likely that, to add color, watercolor was applied over the print. I was not able to find information on the stability of the watercolor, ink, pencil, or crayon Swammerdam used. I think that watercolor and ink, in particular, would smear or bleed upon contact with a liquid. Swammerdam did note that the copper engraving process was inexpensive and efficient and produced prints of lower accuracy than the original drawing (Cobb, 2000, 124).

 

Tools & equipment

• What tools are necessary? What are the best ways to replicate the effects of inaccessible tools? How do technological changes impact our interpretation/expectation of the image? (e.g., engraving, woodcut, silver chromate)

To study the more intricate details of an insect specimen, Swammerdam specifically used single-lens microscopes, which required for the specimen to be almost touching the lens and for the observer to place their eye close to the lens (Cobb, 2000, 124). The image quality offered by a single-lens microscope was significantly poorer compared to that offered by a compound microscope, which only became available in the mid-18th century. Today, a Google search yields multiple images taken by high-resolution cameras (check out this 400-megapixel camera which uses a sensor-shifting technology and costs nearly $50,000!). If photographers are willing to share their images on the Internet, we can use the “zoom in” option on the Chrome browser to view (without straining our eyes) details arguably finer than what Swammerdam and his colleagues were able to view with a single-lens microscope.

The red crayon, red ink, black ink, and pencil Swammerdam used for his drawings are likely much easier to find than the materials used during the copper engraving process. I referred to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s webpage on engraving and a YouTube video from Eric Paul Meier to better understand how prints of Swammerdam’s images might have been created. I can only imagine how much practice, strength, and control it takes to create smooth lines using a burin on the copper plate. The coarseness of the line created on the plate would depend on how much pressure the printmaker applied to the plate. Copper, until around 1820, was commonly the metal used for line engravings. From 1820 onwards, printmakers replaced copper with steel, a harder metal, as the image created on a steel plate would deteriorate more slowly. Unfortunately, the materials, skills, and time required for copper engraving are not as accessible for the average student at Rice today. I consulted one of my friends (Tian-Tian!) on how I could replicate the copper engraving process. I was thinking of replicating the copper engraving process by using a braille stylus to mark a piece of cardboard. I actually gave this a try and soon realized that the cardboard I had was a little too thick and flabby, such that I created a large hole each time I applied pressure with the stylus onto the cardboard. It would have been really challenging to achieve the same level of detail of the print from Plate 24. Thinking about this further, I am also questioning the appropriateness of using a braille stylus to replicate the copper engraving process.

 

FIELD NOTE 1 OF 3

Date: February 13, 2020

People Involved: Alicia Leong

Location: My room in a shared apartment with my roommate, Cara, who was practicing programming problems in preparation for interviews in the room on the opposite side of the apartment. While sitting directly on the carpeted floor of my room, I reconstructed the image on top of a portable lap table/bed tray which was a couple of feet above the floor.

Time and duration of reconstruction:

7 PM – 9 PM, 2 hours

Equipment and tools used:

• Thick stock paper, left over from an assignment in Dr. Engelbretson’s Research on Braille class which involved printing uncontracted braille using a slate and stylus
• Wikipedia image of Plate 24 from Jan Swammerdam’s Bybel der Natuure: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/File:Jardine_Naturalist%27s_library_Entomology_Plate_24.jpg
  • This image’s size is 1,957 × 3,121 pixels, which allowed me to zoom in to view finer details which were harder to discern in the Dropbox file provided by Dr. Li.
  • I am specifically focusing on the insect denoted as “1. Aphana submaculata”.
• Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencil Crimson Red (Rouge Cramoisi) PC 924
  • I have been using colored pencils from Prismacolor since elementary school! These colored pencils have a soft core, which allows for smooth blending and shading.

 

Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:

• The main light in my room was faulty; it flickered every second. Halfway through the image reconstruction process, I felt a migraine coming on and started feeling nauseous. I could no longer stand the pulsating light and ended up changing the lightbulb. I should also note that the lighting in more room tends towards more yellow/warm than white.
• I often enjoy playing music or a podcast in the background while I am drawing/painting. I was listening to an episode on opium use in the United States from The Dollop podcast.
• In my three and a half years at Rice, I have not yet had the opportunity to sit down and draw/paint (for a class, or for fun). Many of my classes in elementary and middle school integrated visual arts and creative projects, but I rarely came across such activities in high school and college. I came back from an experiment that lasted for seven hours, and I was feeling exhausted and slightly defeated. This experience, however, reminded me of how fun, reflective, invigorating, and therapeutic an image reconstruction process can be!
  • I was especially excited to learn about Swammerdam’s motivations for studying insects, which is interesting/unexpected given his background in medicine.
• My roommate had made some pancakes before I started the image reconstruction process, so there was a slight sweet maple scent wafting in the air.

Prior knowledge that you have:

I had done some initial research on how Swammerdam created drawings and prints of insect specimens (as detailed above). Given that Swammerdam created his drawings while observing his specimens with a microscope, without using measuring instruments to make lines (I should note, though, I was not able to find specific information online on whether Swammerdam used any rulers, compasses, etc.), I made the decision to recreate his image of A. submaculata freehand instead of tracing. Like Swammerdam, I chose to use a red colored pencil in the initial part of my drawing process.

Reflection on your practice:

• I initially felt uncertain about the lines I was putting down onto the piece of paper, especially because I knew that marks made by colored pencils are more difficult to erase than marks made by graphite pencils. I chose to use a red colored pencil, not only because Swammerdam had done this in his drawing process, but also because I wanted every line I drew to be intentional. With this red colored pencil from Prismacolor, I was able to work in layers, shade, and blend easily.
• While the lines of Swammerdam’s print look more distinct and discrete (this is not surprising, given that these lines were created by inked copper engravings), the lines in my image are fluffier/more ephemeral looking.
• Because I was drawing freehand, I had to constantly look back and forth between my laptop screen (on which I had Swammerdam’s Plate 24) and the piece of paper. I found myself losing my place quite often. While viewing a specimen through a microscope and then drawing its parts is arguably more challenging, I think this process of looking back and forth from “specimen” (Swammerdam’s Plate 24 on my laptop) to workspace might have somehow reproduced the frustration/difficulty Swammerdam expressed while trying to manage a microscope.
• I noticed how Swammerdam would utilize the closeness of lines in series to create a sense of darkness/lightness/perspective. With that, I was thinking throughout the practice about when to make my lines blurrier versus sharper/more refined. I pressed the colored pencil down more lightly while recreating the blurry portions of the print, and I used more pressure when trying to create more defined portions of the print.
• I wondered how Swammerdam was able to achieve such jagged yet blurry outlines of the white spots on the insect’s wings.
• I was not sure if the dark diamonds on the insect’s head were supposed to be shadows, or the actual texture of the insect’s head.
• I noticed that the outline of the insect’s wings was created by terminating lines.
• Although Swammerdam marveled at the order of the insects he studied (Cobb, 2000, 126), while recreating this print, I focused more on how each shape and line seemed to be randomly/naturally/not artificially placed.
• I found it interesting that Swammerdam chose to draw his specimen with a background of the outdoors/nature. I certainly do think Swammerdam’s intentions were to portray the insects in their natural habitat. Although he was dissecting and preserving these insects, his drawings portrayed the dynamic qualities of the insects as well.  

Photos/video documenting process:

    

Questions that arise (What kinds of larger social, historical, methodological questions can you ask from this process? How did your questions change over time? Which set of readings do you draw on as inspiration to frame your potential answers? How do you engage with narratives about sensation, cognition, neuroscience, neurology, psychology, disability, and the emotions? How do you situate these narratives within histories of science and epistemology? How do you expect to answer your questions?):

• During the initial steps of my recreation process, I began thinking about how it would also be a valuable endeavor to recreate an image from a photo of submaculata and compare this image to my reconstruction of Swammerdam’s print of A. submaculata. This thought was in part driven by wanting to recreate Swammerdam’s process more faithfully; he drew the specimen in front of him, as viewed through a microscope. On the other hand, I was drawing a print of his drawing of the specimen. This made me wonder the following, which relates to our discussion of mechanical objectivity, from Daston and Galison: what can a photo convey that a drawing/painting cannot? What can a drawing/painting convey that a photo cannot? Would Swammerdam have chosen to take a photo of his specimen instead of drawing it if he had the chance?
  • As Daston and Galison have noted, ideal images and characteristic images would have been the norm in Swammerdam’s time. So, was Swammerdam’s image of submaculata a sort of “perfect” version of the insect? Did Swammerdam consolidate the characteristics he observed in all of his A. submaculata specimens into a single image (as a sort of average/“supernormal”; think back to William MacLehose and Anne Beaulieu)? Does his representation of the insect leave out any “outlier” characteristics?
  • Christopher Bell and Bruno Latour would likely argue that the imagemaker’s subjective input is valuable. Mechanical objectivists

 

 FIELD NOTE 2 OF 3

Date: February 14, 2020

People Involved: Alicia Leong, Tian-Tian

Location: I continued my reconstruction of Swammerdam’s print in the same location of my room as yesterday, on top of a portable lap table/bed tray which was a couple of feet above the floor.

Time and duration of reconstruction:

10 PM – 11:30 PM, 1.5 hours

Equipment and tools used:

• Thick stock paper, left over from an assignment in Dr. Engelbretson’s Research on Braille class which involved printing uncontracted braille using a slate and stylus
• In this second field note, I will be discussing how I went over my reconstruction from February 13 with black ink and then watercolor.
  • I used a Zebra Z-Grip Retractable Ballpoint Pen (medium point 1.0mm, black ink, clear barrel).
  • I borrowed Tian-Tian’s brushes (one with a smaller, stiffer tip; the other with a larger, fluffier tip) and her acrylic gouache from Holbein Works (Titanium White – D952, Scarlet – D902, Carmine – D901, Lemon Yellow – D906, Deep Yellow – D905, Viridian – D910).
• Wikipedia image of Plate 24 from Jan Swammerdam’s Bybel der Natuure: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/File:Jardine_Naturalist%27s_library_Entomology_Plate_24.jpg
  • This image’s size is 1,957 × 3,121 pixels, which allowed me to zoom in to view finer details which were harder to discern in the Dropbox file provided by Dr. Li.
  • I am specifically focusing on the insect denoted as “1. Aphana submaculata”.

Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:

• I was listening to an episode on tea (“It’s Tea Time: Pirates, Polyphenols, and a Proper Cuppa) from the Gastropod podcast.
• I walked back to my apartment from a friend’s room on the Rice campus, and I felt as if I should have worn a scarf, gloves, and a few more layers. My fingers felt a little stiff due to the cold weather, and the black pen at first felt a little awkward between my fingers.
• I was drinking some green tea, with ginger and honey mixed in. This warmed me up!

Prior knowledge that you have:

I had watched a YouTube video on and read up on copper engravings as part of my initial research for this assignment. While I was not able to go through the process of engraving a piece of metal, I did think of my lines in pen (over the colored pencil lines I had created the previous day) as the engravings I would make if I had a sheet of metal and a burin. Over the pen lines, I then added some color using acrylic gouache paint diluted with water, mirroring the process of using watercolors to add color to the print made from an engraving.

 

Reflection on your practice:

• It was more difficult to shade with pen than with colored pencil. As I had observed yesterday, lines in series that were closer together were used for darker areas/areas in focus, whereas lines in series that were farther apart were used for lighter areas/areas out of focus. While I was able to use the colored pencil yesterday to indicate these qualities of Swammerdam’s image, I had to almost exclusively rely on the closeness of these pen lines (much like the lines made with a burin on a copper sheet) and hatching technique today to create these very qualities.
  • Which details were actually captured by the engraving (with the assumption, too, that these details would be featured in every print made from that engraving), and which details were then filled in after the print (e.g., watercolors)?
• I paid particular attention to the different layers of the image—whether lines/shapes were draw above or below one another. What is at the forefront and what is in the background?
• I noticed that Swammerdam had left some space between objects belonging to the background and the insect, to create some perspective/sense of distance in a two-dimensional image.
• I changed the brightness of my laptop screen, and I noticed how certain colors of Swammerdam’s image looked different depending on the screen’s brightness settings. While it seems that Swammerdam completed most of his drawings under natural light, I wonder how the viewer’s perception of color would change over different lighting conditions.
• Perhaps in an effort to create a sense of order out of the random lines and patterns of the insect’s wings, I began to notice human faces in different parts of the insect’s body. I wonder if this relates to our tendency to understand cognition in very human-centric terms.
• It was particularly challenging working with watercolors. Perhaps it was because I have not worked with watercolor in years, but I had trouble controlling how the paint was applied to the paper. I also had trouble matching the colors of my image to those of Swammerdam’s print.

 

Photos/video documenting process:

 

Questions that arise (What kinds of larger social, historical, methodological questions can you ask from this process? How did your questions change over time? Which set of readings do you draw on as inspiration to frame your potential answers? How do you engage with narratives about sensation, cognition, neuroscience, neurology, psychology, disability, and the emotions? How do you situate these narratives within histories of science and epistemology? How do you expect to answer your questions?):

• Although the copper engraving is likely to create the exact print each time, my practice session this time demonstrated to me how difficult it is to ensure that the colored version of the print is the same each time. How does the engraver/painter/artist try to ensure the uniformity of the image? Are all prints created from the same engraving the exact same?
  • Perhaps this is why scientists turned towards photography, away from wood engravings, in the pursuit of mechanical objectivity (Daston and Galison).
• Although I was directed to pay attention to subjective factors of my practice from the channels of various senses, the creation of this image seemed like a predominantly visual pursuit. Daston and Galison mention this idea of having “a trained eye,” but how are representations created in disciplines in which other senses are favored? Alternatively, should we think of the scientific illustration beyond the visual object in front of us, and instead more as a process (drawing from Dr. Barwich’s article) or as a performance or political statement (drawing from Dr. Li’s article on analgesic anesthesia and the photos of smiling patients undergoing surgery and self-experimentation with needling)?
  • Indeed, Swammerdam created The Book of Nature to demonstrate to other researchers and the public that insects are not products of spontaneous generation. This, to Swammerdam, was a confirmation of God’s glory.

 

FIELD NOTE 3 OF 3

Date: February 15, 2020

People Involved: Alicia Leong

Location: Drawing from my questions from the previous practices, I made the decision to create an image from a photo of A. submaculata. Once again, I worked in the same location of my room.

Time and duration of reconstruction:

9 AM – 11:30 AM, 2.5 hours

Equipment and tools used:

• Thick stock paper, left over from an assignment in Dr. Engelbretson’s Research on Braille class which involved printing uncontracted braille using a slate and stylus
• In this third field note, I wanted to “become” Swammerdam, going through the process of deciding how to create an image of a specimen (or photo of a specimen) using my own techniques. I used colored pencils—the medium I felt most comfortable using.
  • I used the following colored pencils from Prismacolor: True Blue (PC 903) for the base (aka Swammerdam’s red colored pencil), Grass Green (PC 909), Crimson Red (PC 924), Black (PC 935), Violet Blue (PC 933), Dark Brown (PC 946), Orange (PC 918), Sienna Brown (PC 945), Canary Yellow (PC 916)
• Photo of Aphana, found on Wikipedia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Aphaena_dissimilis_TPopp.jpg
  • I chose a photo of Aphana that resembled the insect in Swammerdam’s print.
  • This image’s size is 2,697 × 1,757 pixels, which allowed for zooming in to view finer details captured by a camera.

Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:

• I was listening to an Afropop playlist shared with me by Setsabile, a friend from Eswatini!
• I was drinking more green tea, with ginger and honey mixed in.

Prior knowledge that you have:

I looked a little more into what insect Swammerdam illustrated. According to Wikipedia, Aphana/Aphaena is a genus of planthoppers in the Aphaeninae subfamily. Wikipedia additionally notes that Aphaeninae are often mistaken for Lepidoptera due to their large and colorfully patterned wings.

Reflection on your practice:

• I first used a blue colored pencil, instead of a red colored pencil, to draw the image (freehand again). Looking back, I think I should have used a red/orange/yellow colored pencil, as the image of the insect was dominated by red, orange, and yellow colors. The blue I used ended up mixing with the yellow to create green. Instead of using a black pen, I used a violet colored pencil to go over the image a second time. I then used colored pencils from a 12-piece set to add color to half of the image. I chose to leave one half of my reconstruction without color, as I thought this uncolored half showed a bit more of the process and texture, which ended up being covered up with color on the other side. At a certain point, I could no longer layer over colors.
• I immediately noticed how cartoonish Swammerdam’s print looks in comparison to the photograph. I still wonder what Swammerdam’s artistic/scientific decisions were. For instance, did the abdomen of his insect specimen really look like a comic book panel of bushes or trees in the distance? Or, did he choose to represent the abdomen in a more simplified manner?
• As I had already noticed previously, my outline of the insect’s body looks fluffier than the outline of the insect’s body in Swammerdam’s print.
• I began to realize that my reconstruction of the image I referenced from Wikipedia took on a more “abstract” turn. For instance, I began taking artistic liberties and shaded and colored certain parts of the insect’s wing in a way that becomes different from how it looks in real life/the photo. This was partly due to the limitations in color choice; I had trouble mixing colors to match the those in the image. I realized I was also adding colors and lines in ways I found aesthetically pleasing, but this may not be a true-to-photo representation of the insect’s body. In other words, although I was trying to recreate the image as objectively as possible, I allowed for subjectivity to take over, and for human intervention to take place. Is this just due to lack of artistic skill/control, though?
  • I also wonder if photos of objects are distorted in any way. How would these compare with the representations constructed by our brain when we view the object in person?

 

Photos/video documenting process:

 

Questions that arise (What kinds of larger social, historical, methodological questions can you ask from this process? How did your questions change over time? Which set of readings do you draw on as inspiration to frame your potential answers? How do you engage with narratives about sensation, cognition, neuroscience, neurology, psychology, disability, and the emotions? How do you situate these narratives within histories of science and epistemology? How do you expect to answer your questions?):

• Since the beginning of Assignment 1, I have been struggling with the dilemma of representation. While I was intentionally trying to create a true-to-photo representation of the insect’s body, I ended up with a reconstruction that looks and feels very different from the original photo. Is there any epistemological value to my reconstruction, even though one could clearly tell that I took many artistic liberties? Would the value of this reconstruction be different if I were Swammerdam, or a scientific illustrator creating images for a textbook to be disseminated to students? Although Daston and Galison have argued that mechanical objectivity is an unattainable ideal, where do we (or should we even) draw the line between a scientific illustration intended for educational/anatomical purposes and an abstract art piece?
• Along a similar vein, can we think of artists as academic researchers? Why do we think of art as a “soft” practice and science/research as a “hard” practice? What is there to art that makes it squishy and less pinpointable? What are the sites of knowledge production? What can we learn from art? What do we consider as art?

 

[1] I was not able to find more information online to confirm whether the Natural History of Insects (1792) is the same as the Bybel der Natuure, also known as The Book of Nature. According to Matthew Cobb, The Book of Nature was compiled between 1676 and 1679.