
Published online:
24 August 2015
Published in print:
23 November 2011
Online ISBN:
9781452946603
Print ISBN:
9780816667642
Contents
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The Origins of Micrographia The Origins of Micrographia
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Hooke’s Role in the Royal Society Hooke’s Role in the Royal Society
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Hooke and Wren Hooke and Wren
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Crafting Natural Appearances: Creating Calm and Order in the Microworld Crafting Natural Appearances: Creating Calm and Order in the Microworld
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Making Images and Making Observations: Hooke’s Early Drawings of Insects Making Images and Making Observations: Hooke’s Early Drawings of Insects
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Constructing the Persona of a Scientific Observer: Quietly Peeping in at the Window Constructing the Persona of a Scientific Observer: Quietly Peeping in at the Window
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Five Stitches, Specimens, and Pictures: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Processing of the Natural World
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Chapter
Four Between Observation and Image: Representations of Insects inRobert Hooke’s Micrographia
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Pages
105–138
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Published:November 2011
Cite
Neri, Janice, 'Between Observation and Image: Representations of Insects inRobert Hooke’s Micrographia', The Insect and the Image: Visualizing Nature in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700 (Minneapolis, MN , 2011; online edn, Minnesota Scholarship Online, 24 Aug. 2015), https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816667642.003.0004, accessed 24 Apr. 2025.
Abstract
Robert Hooke is an English scholar who published the historic book Micrographia, a compilation of illustrations of insects, plants, mechanical objects, and astronomical bodies that highlights his skills as an illustrator and observer. This chapter narrates the progression of events leading to the production and publication of the book. It begins by recounting the Micrographia’s origins as microscopical insect drawings of Christopher Wren. It then explains Hooke’s techniques in creating the specimens and images to display “natural” appearances, an act of transforming chaotic observations into a comprehensible and orderly realm of wonders.
Subject
History of Art
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