True and Proper Pictures

This chapter assesses the representation of exotica in European art. This depiction sheds considerable light on the constructs of veracity and the bounds of imagery, from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. In addition to their subsidiary but vital roles in historical landscape and commemorative narrative, exotica served as the principals in natural history illustration. Among the first works with detailed, if schematized, illuminations of flora and fauna were religious texts and medieval editions of ancient medical treatises. These largely didactic presentations of European plants and animals provided the pictorial structure for the earliest renderings of exotica. Whether artists drew them from life in the course of their travels, viewed them in menageries and botanical gardens, or based their illustrations on collections of dried or stuffed specimens, they placed their subjects against uniformly plain backgrounds. Land mammals, aquatic creatures, and plants were suspended in a pristine world, while birds were shown perched upon accessory branches.

Archaeology · Art · Art history · Biology · Creatures · Depiction · Flora (microbiology) · Geography · Literature · Narrative · Natural (archaeology) · Representation (politics) · Visual arts · Historical and Literary Studies · History · Paleontology