Reconstruction of “Plate 3 from the Naturalist’s Library: Entomology” by Adrian Almy
I have chosen to recreate Plate 3 from The Naturalist’s Library: Entomology. While this image depicts several members of the species Mantis religiosa, the European Mantis, the illustrator focuses on a single one which they illustrate with greater detail as well as color. The image is meant to serve as a reference for naturalists attempting to identify the species of different insects. The Naturalist’s Library was published in 1840. It was edited by Sir William Jardine, and this particular volume was written by James Duncan, a Scottish naturalist who specializes in entomology. The book serves as a detailed guide to the basics of entomology. The first half is a written explanation of the important concepts in the field, and the second half is a series of color etchings of different insects.
To create a color etching, you paint a copper plate. Then you use a scalpel to remove the paint where the lines need to be. After that you put the plate in acid to cure the plate, which leaves etches in the copper where the paint is removed. You then carefully put colored ink into the grooves of the copper where you want the print to be particular colors. After that you put the plate and paper into a roller machine that pushes the ink into the paper to create a colored image. You can then repeat this several times. The copper plate is fairly durable although the ink may need to be reapplied, however the paper the actual prints are made on only lasts a long time if proper care is taken of it.
While the technology used to create this is still available today, none of it is accessible to me. I have access to paper as well as a few types of pens and a pencil. I also have access to a laptop. The only things I can realistically do to recreate the image then are to draw it from a reference or to trace it. This particular image is far too complex for me to draw from a reference with my level of drawing skill, so I will be tracing it. This difference in technology will likely change the precision, and my version will be black and white instead of color, but the details of the anatomy should still translate well.
FIELD NOTE 1 OF 3
Date: 2/11/2022
People Involved: Adrian Almy
Location: Old Sid Dorm Room
Reconstruction conditions:
It is relatively late, so it is dark outside and I do not have access to any natural light. It is also very quiet with the exception of an air filter running in the background.
Time and duration of reconstruction:
25 min from 11:30 – 11:55 PM
Equipment and tools used:
Laptop, notebook paper, micron pen, phone
Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:
I felt extremely tense and stressed the entire time I was working on this reconstruction. The two things that stress me out the most are doing visual art and showing people unfinished work, and I just did both of those things at the same time for an extended period of time. Micron pens do not use enough ink to give off a distinct smell, and there was an air filter running. As such I did not smell anything during this reconstruction. Since I did not have access to natural light and do not own or know where to borrow a tracing pad with a light in it, I traced on my laptop screen. I have done this before, but I always felt it looked silly. My foot also began to fall asleep because I was sitting on it.
Prior knowledge that you have:
I did a lot of visual art when I was a child. That ended at roughly the age of twelve. I have not done any since with the exception of a little bit of set design and similar technical sketches or illustrating a graphic novel for a class once. I stopped doing visual art because I found it made me deeply uncomfortable, so I do not even have any experience doodling or tracing.except for the handful of times it has been required by a teacher or professor. I know almost nothing about entomology, and I did not know what a color etching was before researching it for this assignment.
Reflection on your practice:
It did not actually take as long as I had expected to do this recreation. I had scheduled half an hour, and I thought the actual mantis would take much more of the time. I think the reason for this is that a lot of the details in the original image aren’t visible through the paper. For instance I entirely missed one of the two mantises in the center left of the background. Tracing paper would be much better for this, but I do not have access to that. I would like a thicker pen for some of the sections, and I think perhaps natural light might be better for this. However, I am not likely to be able to work on this while it is still light out. I also would like some way to recreate the green color. I don’t have ink or color pencils, but perhaps if I used chlorophyll from a plant? I may try that tomorrow.
Photos/video documenting process:
Image to be traced:
I took an picture every five minutes:
Recreation #1 without traced image:
Questions that arise:
How can I more accurately capture the thickness of different parts of the image?
How can I recreate the color on the central mantis?
How can I get more detail to come through the paper?
What does this say about traditional depictions of the senses?
FIELD NOTE 2 OF 3
Date: 2/12/2022
People Involved: Adrian Almy
Location: Old Sid Dorm Room
Reconstruction conditions:
It is significantly earlier in the day than last time, so I do have access to some natural light. However, I did not have a chance to print the image in color so I will be using the same tracing method. I have music playing in order to keep me from overthinking what I am doing.
Time and duration of reconstruction:
20 min from 1:00 – 1:20 PM
Equipment and tools used:
Notebook paper, leaves, laptop, phone
Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:
The leaves smelled a little bit like grass as I was tearing them. They were fairly rough. The green color I did manage to get looked thin and splotchy.
Prior knowledge that you have:
In my previous trial, the two things that I was least satisfied with were the ability to see the details through the paper and the inability to recreate the color that highlighted the central figure. Due to this I am going to experiment with two different ways to highlight the central image. I know that if you tear up a leaf you can create a green pigment. It isn’t ideal, but that is what I have available to recreate the actual color. I will also attempt to hold the paper more steady, but I do not know if that is feasible.
Reflection on your practice:
This was essentially a failed experiment. While I was able to reproduce a green pigment from the leaves after I retraced the primary mantis, it was very difficult to precisely place the pigment. It also used a lot of leaves, and the process of tearing and crumpling them to get the pigment was very time consuming.
Photos/video documenting process:
I traced the green part:
Then I attempted to create and apply the pigment:
Recreation #2: (As close to the goal as I got)
Questions that arise:
If I cannot recreate the color, what else can I do to recreate the effect the color creates?
Why is it important that the primary mantis be more readily visible?
Can a two dimensional image of a creature really serve as a definitive representation of it?
FIELD NOTE 3 OF 3
Date: 2/13/2022
People Involved: Adrian Almy
Location: Old Sid Dorm Room
Reconstruction conditions:
I have a slight headache from staring at a computer screen all day yesterday working on assignments, but nothing that should really distract from the work I need to do. It is light outside, but I have my blinds close so I mostly have overhead light. I can still hear the air filter over the music I am playing.
Time and duration of reconstruction:
30 min 5:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Equipment and tools used:
Laptop, phone, notebook paper, black and red micron pens.
Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:
I used the red micron pen to outline everything that was previously shaded in green. This brought those sections to the forefront of my vision the same way that coloring them in green did. The page looked much more filled out this time because I was able to figure out how to get more of the detail to come through the paper. There was no particular smell to anything I was using. I can feel the lines in the page where I was drawing because I was pressing down so hard. It is kind of like an etching in a way. Except for almost everything else about it, of course.
Prior knowledge that you have:
Creating the green pigment did not work in recreation two. I was thinking about how I could recreate the effect and what purpose it really served. I decided the main purpose was so that you could see the anatomy of the mantis better against the background. In order to recreate that I chose to outline the green sections in red because red will pop out from the page and catch the viewer’s attention first. This should serve a similar purpose of highlighting the anatomy.
Reflection on your practice:
Ultimately I think that my final recreation accomplished all of the goals of the original image. It does not look as nice, it is less durable, and it could probably only identify a creature as a mantis and not specifically a European Mantis, but it would help someone get that far at least. However as I was thinking about what the purpose of the color was, I began to think about whether the original drawing really achieved its purpose. Could a two dimensional image of a single organism actually serve as an accurate representation for the whole species? Did the original illustrator actually design their etching from a specific mantis or where they just creating an amalgamation of mantis traits? The beginning of M. Jay’s 1993 article “the Noblest of Senses” discusses the backlash against the perception that vision is the most important sense in France. One of the arguments brought forth is that you can only ever see a single perspective at a time. The viewer always has their own particular way of processing what they see. This means their unconscious biases towards a particular image or situation cannot be separated from their perception of it. As such, if I am inclined to think I have a European Mantis, then is it not likely that I will look for the signs that I am correct in the image. This may not be on purpose, but I find it more likely that a person will proceed by attempting to verify their hypothesis rather than disprove it.
Photos/video documenting process:
I took an image every five minutes:
Recreation #3: Final Product
Questions that arise:
Are reference images a good way to allow a researcher to verify the identity of an object?
Is there any situation in which we can determine an object’s identity for certain without some sort of other testing, like against a genetic database?