Picture this: 400 years of scientific illustration.

• Position: Museum Today

Illustration has been essential to research and disseminating findings about the natural world among scientists and the public on an unprecedented scale beginning In the 1500s. In the process of observing specimens, describing their structures, and working closely with illustrators or creating detailed illustrations themselves, naturalists--Including Charles Darwin, Marcus Elieser Bloch, and Marla Sibylla Merian--cataloged new species, found similarities among species, and began to place them on the evolutionary tree.

Different printing techniques, ranging from woodcuts to engraving to lithography, proved highly effective in spreading new knowledge about nature and human culture to a growing audience. Illustrated books allowed the lay public to share in the excitement of discoveries, from Antarctica to the Amazon, from the largest life forms to the microscopic.

"In the days before photography and printing, original art was the only way to capture the likeness of organisms, people, and places, and therefore the only way to share this information with others," notes Tom Baione, the Harold Boeschenstein Director of the Department of Library Services at the American Museum of American History and curator of the exhibition "Natural Histories: 400 Years of Scientific Illustration."

"Printed reproductions of art about natural history enabled many who'd never seen an octopus, for example, to try to begin to understand what an octopus looked like and how its unusual features might function."

Today, scientists use many imaging technologies to conduct research: infrared photography, scanning electron microscopes, computed tomography (CT) scanners, and more, but there still Is a role for illustration--how else to depict animals that cannot be seen live, such as a fleshed-out dinosaur? Illustration also is used to represent complex structures clearly, color graduations, and other essential details.

"Natural Histories: 400 Years of Scientific Illustration" explores the integral role Illustration has played In scientific discovery through 50 striking, large-format reproductions from the 2012 book, Natural Histories: Extraordinary Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library, edited by Baione. It showcases images that were created in pursuit of scientific knowledge and to accompany important scientific works in disciplines ranging from astronomy to zoology, including illustrations by celebrated artists Albrecht Durer, Joseph...