![]() When she has to ‘fill in the blanks,’ she brings to life the society that Merian lived in, and then explains what a woman of Merian’s class and background probably would have experienced. This is a tricky area for a biographer, but I thought Todd handled it with great aplomb. ![]() The thing about Merian is that there are definitely blanks in her life…the historical record tends to favour those with power, after all. The book includes many of her drawings and watercolours, and they’re all simply stunning. And she did beautiful drawings of those insects, with the drawing skills she picked up as a child in an artistic house. She was a scientist of the style more recognisible now than then: she learned about the world through close observation, studying thousands of insects and their life processes. ![]() ![]() Merian had a really neat life: she didn’t stay within conventions, and she kept her passion for metamorphosis alive even while running a household. It’s a marvelous piece of science history, chronicling the life of 18th century scientist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian. I picked up Chrysalis after reading Lu’s post on it. So it’s no great surprise that in my backlog I’ve got a few Women Unbound books to discuss! As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve become a bit addicted to nonfiction centered around women’s issues. ![]()
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