Kraus Jr., New York (top left and bottom right) the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. His peculiar style often left him relegated to a regional style of Southern Gothic, though his posthumously published photo-book, T he Family Album of Lucybelle Crater (named after the main character in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”), earned him increasing institutional attention.Īnna Atkins, (clockwise from top left) Peacock (1861), Laminaria phyllitis (1844–45), Papaver rhoeas (1861), and Alaria esculenta (1849–50). Meatyard earned little critical acclaim in his lifetime, though his works was presented alongside those of Ansel Adams, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan in “Creative Photography,” an exhibition curated by Van Deren Coke for the University of Kentucky. His photographs were unusual for the time, and often included blurred figures, and, later, portraits of his children and himself wearing odd, monster-like masks. Profoundly influenced by Zen Buddhism (and a pen pal of the Trappist monk Thomas Merton), Meatyard would spend some three months looking through an u nfocused camera to attain what he called a state of “No-Focus,” in which the appearance of an object was detached from its meaning.Īrtistic Pursuits: Meatyard began taking photographs in the 1950s and would pursue the practice until his early death in 1972. This firm also owned a photography company, which introduced the doctor to the medium. A position with an optical firm would bring him to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1950. Born in Normal, Illinois, Meatyard served in the military before becoming a licensed optician in 1949. Scientific Endeavors: Ralph Eugene Meatyard extended both of his careers, as a photographer and an optician, from a scientific and philosophical fascination with light and vision. ![]() Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Lucybelle Crater and her 45-year-old husband’s photo-Bell friend’s sonshine, Lucybelle Crater (1970-72). Returning to the United States, he found the American public unreceptive to his style, which he blamed on a culture of prevailing bad taste. Large-scale Neoclassical paintings of myth and history scenes were his passion, and the most famous of his works is the monumental Gallery of the Louvre, measuring an impressive six by nine feet. Morse would go on to develop both the telegraph and the Morse code, absolutely dazzling the world when, on May 24, 1844, he sent the biblical line, “What hath God wrought?” from the US Capitol in Washington, DC, to Baltimore, with his new invention.Īrtistic Pursuits: Though his career in the arts was overshadowed by his stunning accomplishments in the field of communications, Morse made a serious go at art, studying under the painter Washington Allston, and then with Benjamin West at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. After that dream cooled, he went on to pursue his interest in the burgeoning field of electromagnetics-and for the future of telecommunications, his shift in studies was a godsend. Scientific Endeavors: As a student at Yale, Samuel Morse studied philosophy and math, but dreamed of a career as an artist of great history paintings. Courtesy of Terra Foundation for American Art, Merian’s interests extended far beyond the parlor, however a n adventurer to the umpteenth degree, she traveled to Dutch Surinam on a self-funded journey in 1699 (raising many eyebrows) and documented a wealth of flora, creating some of the first color illustrations of the New World. As was common at the time, these decorative illustrations, which were not drawn from direct observation, were intended to be used by upper-class ladies as designs for embroidery, drawings, and paintings. Her most influential studies detailed the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies-a phenomenon that was largely undocumented before her investigations. She penned a two-volume book on caterpillars, with each accompanied by 50 plates of engravings, and is today considered one of the pioneers of the field of entomology.Īrtistic Pursuits: Before her scientific investigations, Merian first earned acclaim as a botanical artist, publishing a three-volume series, each of 12 illustrated plates of flowers, in 1675. When she started her research, insects were still commonly referred to as “beasts of the devil” and were thought to spontaneously generate from mud. ![]() ![]() Scientific Contributions : A 17th-century naturalist and botanist, Merian was one of the first European scientists to directly observe insects. Collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, public domain. Maria Sibylla Merian, Caterpillars, Butterflies (Arsenura armida) and Flower (Pallisaden Boom: Erythrina fusca), Plate 11 from Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (1705).
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