Texts and images

The gradual abandonment of Latin as the universal language of the world of learning was a long process.Felicity Henderson's 'Faithful interpreters?' in this issue examines a stage in the process, during the early years of the Royal Society, in which correspondents' relatively novel use of European vernaculars was making translations increasingly necessary if communications were to be read with ease.As Henderson shows, translation was not a straightforward matter.Agreement on the need for the faithful rendering of scientific texts went hand in hand with a diversity of practices.Translators with a more literary bent, for example, tended to favour freer translations that would convey the 'spirit' of the original, whereas others left the mark of their scientific expertise on translations that bore a measure of 'dual authority', their own as well as that of the authors whose texts they were handling.'Faithfulness', as these practices show, was often achieved, and arguably better achieved, through procedures distinct from word-for-word translation.In the seventeenth century, as in later periods, illustrations were no less important than texts as vehicles of communication.Pursuing a theme treated by herself and others in recent issues of Notes and Records, Sachiko Kusukawa throws new light on the passage from an original drawing to its reproduction in print. 1 The case she examines is that of five previously unpublished drawings of fossils by Robert Hooke, with two by Richard Waller, that appeared in due course as plates in Hooke's Posthumous works (1705).Although Waller's drawings are of high quality, Hooke's demonstrate an exceptional skill in conveying the details and contours of his specimens through the application of a variety of washes and the skilful use of ink lines.The resulting intaglio plates are certainly fine.Yet they do not convey the delicacy of originals that, as Kusukawa shows, were worthy (in Hooke's case) of a former pupil of Sir Peter Lely.Looking back over the 75 years of the existence of Notes and Records, the increasing prominence of visual elements, both as illustrative material and as objects of study, is striking.Many of the finest illustrations that have appeared in the journal are drawn from the Royal Society's own collections, which continue to grow (as with the accession of the recently catalogued papers of Sir John Vane 2 ), although with occasional losses along the way.In this issue, Keith Moore draws attention to four (possibly five) seventeenth-century portraits of Fellows that have disappeared, losses that have come to light recently in the recataloguing of the Society's oil paintings.A celebrated image of a different kind is Hokusai's nineteenth-century woodcut The great wave off Kanagawa.In their discussion of the woodcut and the phenomenon it represents, J. M. Dudley, V. Sarano and F. Dias take up a question raised in earlier issues of Notes and Records.In particular, they offer a discussion that complements the interpretation of the wave as a large storm wave on the point of breaking (rather than a tsunami) by Julyan Cartwright and Hisami Nakamura. 3or some years now, Notes and Records has begun each issue with an image, normally drawn from the Royal Society Library

Aesthetics · Art · Sociology · Historical and Linguistic Studies · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Psychology

• On receiving a first copy of Notes and Records

  Robert Fox•Notes and Records the Royal…•2013

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• Tsunami

  Julyan H E Cartwright, Hisami Nakamura•Notes and Records the Royal…•2008

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