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Creator (Definite): Brian W Ogilvie
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Full title: Ogilvie, B. 'The Pleasure of Describing: Art and Science in August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof's Monthly Insect Entertainment', in Thorsen, L.E., Rader, K.A. and Dodd, A. (eds.), Animals on Display: the Creaturely in Museums, Zoos, and Natural History (Pennsylvania University Press, 2013). pp. 77-100.
Description:
Ogilvie draws on the example of Rösel's Monthly Insect Entertainment to argue that, at least in the case of entomological investigation, no clear distinction can be drawn between eighteenth-century scientific and artistic endeavour.
Noting that 'Rösel's work both drew on and reinforced a view that human beings could learn much from insects while at the same time finding recreation in their display', he describes Rösel's work as an 'aestheticization of insects', as well as an attempt to define their nature: 'both the title of the Insect Entertainment and Rösel's continued self-identification as a "miniature painter" on its title suggest that even in Enlightened Germany, it would be premature to draw a sharp distinction between scientific and artistic modes of knowing and displaying insects.' (78)
Rösel, according to Ogilvie, believed (following contemporary natural theolog) that 'Naive enthusiasm for superficial beauty was a low form of pleasure; true understanding enhanced the overall aesthetic impact of displaying nature.' (92) Although he acknowledges that 'From one perspective, Rösel's Insect Entertainment can be read... as part of the history of science; in particular, the history of natural history and entomology before their professionalization', he warns that 'We should be wary... of imposing the modern notion of "science" on... [such] investigators of nature, or of reducing the early modern fascination with insects to a stage in the production of systematized knowledge.' (95)
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Cited byA. Dodd et. al., 'Introduction', in L.E. Thorsen, et. al. (eds), Animals on Display: the Creaturely in Museums, Zoos, and Natural History. 2013. pp. 1-11.
Description:'Brian Ogilvie axamines how art and science intersected around very small animals - insects - in the eighteenth century. Early modern and Enlightenment studies of insects faced the challenge of making animals visible in a unique way, since their subjects are often too small to be seen, or seen well, with the unassisted eye. This meant that standardized forms of magnification - through the lens and on the page - were necessary for the production of authentic portrayals. These methods did not develop overnight, but rather emerged over time; indeed, they are still developing, and continue to marry aesthetic concerns with pragmatic requirements... The [enlightenment] need to establish some validity for the study of insects inspired strikingly detailed illuatration, a practive that began to gain considerable momentum during the eighteenth century with images as beautiful as they were accurate. August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof, the central figure of Ogilvie's essay, emerges during this time as a significant proponent of not just what would later be labeled as the science of entomology, but what might be called an insect aesthetic. We find here an exemplary case of art, science, and theology converging not only in the animal, but also in its "world." The aesthetics of butterflies and beetles that Rösel developed simultaneously authenticated the "lifeworlds" of the insects he observed and the methods used to observe them. Insects were to be understood (and portrayed) both as specimens detached from their unfamiliar, subvisible "world," and as emblematic of that world itself, which was becoming increasingly accessible to those with the technology and natural history skills required to explore and document it.' (7-8)
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Cited byAdam Dodd, 'Popular Entomology and Anthropomorphism in the Nineteenth Century: L.M. Budgen's Episodes of Insect Life', in Thorsen et. al., Animals on Display (2013), pp. 153-175.
Description:
'For many nineteenth-century naturalists (as with a number of their early modern predecessors, such as Rosel, discussed by Brian Ogilvie in this volume), events ocurring within the perceived insect world effectively "spoke back" of moral, allegorical, and instructional truhs' (155) -
QuotesAugust Rösel von Rosenhof, Monatlich herausgegebene Insecten-Belustigung (Nuremberg, 1746-1761).
Description:'"Now, instead of a worm we consider ugly, we have a butterfly, insteaf of a crawling creature, a flying one; instead of an insect that lives on and eats the willow-tree, another one that dwells near flowers. But we must consider it more closely."' (77)
Ogilvie notes that this text is a compilation of smaller works, published as the series Instecten-Belustigung between 1741 and the 1780s. The smaller editions were 'quarto-sized copperplate engraving[s] with a quarto sheet (eight pages) of accompanying German text', released by Rösel (after 1759 his son-in-law) between 1741 and 1762 (77-78). He notes the publication of the 4 volumes as occurring in 1746, 1749, 1755 and 1762. (77-78)
'As more and more installations of the Insect Entertainment continued to appear, Rösel began to receive reports and specimens of peculiar insects from Nuremberg and farther abroad. But his reputation as an insect hunter could also hinder his access to unusual finds. In [1746]... he heard that a woman who had a garden near Nuremberg had found a beautiful caterpillar and was showing it for money: "My desire for insects that I did not know swiftly led me to seek out this woman, but when she realized that I was the person to whom several of her supporters had asked her to bring the caterpillar, she did not want to show it to me. It cost me many flattering words to get a look from some distance. Even from afar, I recognized it immediately as the caterpillar I had been seeking for some time; I did not rest until I had acquired it, with cash and a little flattery." In this case, Rösel's reputation worked against him'. (82)
'The Privet Hawk Moth (Sphinx ligustri [L.]), Rösel confessed, "is the first caterpillar I have described that I have not seen myself, though I have made every effort imaginable to find it." Privet, he explained, is rare around Nuremberg. However he decided to publish a description anyhow... Perhaps embarrassed by publishing a description of an insect he had not seen and studied while he was alive, Rösel lapsed into the subjunctive: "This would be the tenth month in the second class," he wrote, "but I know still more though I have not been able to find out whether their caterpillars are found around here perhaps, though, I will find them, and then I will spare no effort to describe them and their metamorphosis."' (82)
'Rösel... accompanied each engraving with a quarto sheet of text. These sheets were originally published separately with the accompanying illustration, and Rösel's printer, Johann Joseph Fleischmann, fit the text to the sheets, either filling up blank with ornamental flourishes or switching to smaller type in the last few pages of a sheet in order to fit in the entire text... the engravings were to be tipped into a blank leaf so that they could be folded out and examined while reading the text.
This format allowed Rösel to describe species at length while having the image constantly before the reader's eyes. And Rösel, unlike Merian, included in his engravings numbers or letters that were keyed to the text. Modeled after the keys that were common in works of anatomy and natural history, these cross-references linked the images closely to the accompanying descriptions. Read and examined together, image and text formed the complete "insect entertainment," which might in turn inspire readers to seek out and observe the insects themselves.' (84)
'The first beetle Rösel described was... the cockchafer or Maikäfer... These well-known insects, he wrote, please everyone because after a harsh winter they are the sign of the advent of spring: "Therefore I hope that my efforts to give a complete report on the generation, growth, and metamorphosis of this insect will not be displeasing to my worthy readers. For, though there are few people in this part of the world who since their childhood have not been familiar with the cockchafer, there are very few who know how they are generated, how they grow, and how they transform themselves." In this case, the "entertainment"comes from learning an unknown truth about a well-known creature.' (87-88)
Rösel's 'insect illustrations, carefully hand-coloured by himself or under his supervision... are composed with an eye to filling out the engraving systematically, and using space well. In this case it is instructive to compare the engraved frontispieces to Rösel's first three volumes with the actual Insect Entertainment itself. The latter contains sober drawings, with the insects generally organized in blank space... The frontispieces, on the other hand, are carefully composed. Volume I's frontispiece is an allegorical composition by Johann Justin Preißler, engraved by Martin Tyroff (1704-1758). Rösel himself produced the frontispiece to volume 2... while volume 3 features the work of Nicolaus Gabler (1725-1780), engraved by Michael Rößler (1705-1777). All three reveal that the sober style of the Entertainment's engravings was deliberate.' (90)
'Rösel... was at pains to underscore that his work was not intended simply to please the senses: "Men have sharply differing inclinations: however, I hold that the more noble inclination should always be preserved. To love something only because it delights the senses, without also directing one's attention to its Author or to the use that one can receive through it - that has never been what brought me to investigate insects. My intention has always been nobler; I have undertaken these investigations to praise the Creator and to be of use to my neighbour."... Rösel realized that his publication, with its textual excurses, would not please those "who wish only to see the bright butterflies in my collection," but he had received enough support and praise that he was not concerned about such critics.' (90-92)
'As he continued his work, he expanded its scope. To the buterflies, moths and beetles with which he began, he added other creatures: water bugs, dragonflies and damselfies, grasshoppers and crickets, bees and wasps, gnats and flies. In the third, supplementary volume, Rösel added even more insects: "the cunning, skillful Ant-Robber" (i.e., the ant lion), water spiders, gall wasps, and - in a reminder that the term "insect" had a broader meaning for Rösel than it does for modern zoology - two kinds of crayfishes, as well as a "History of Polyps and Other Water Insects."' (93)
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Related toAugust Johann Rösel von Rosenhof
Description:Ogilvie describes Rösel as a 'Neuremberg miniature painter' (77), relating his background as follows: 'Scion of a noble Austrian family, the Rösels von Rosenhof, who had emigrated to Franconia during the Reformation and then fallen on hard times, Rösel had been trained as an artist by his cousin and then worked as a miniature painter and engraver before obtaining a position as a court painter in Copenhagen.' (78-79)
'Rösel... worked closely with scholarly experts on insects. He attended lectures in German by the Altdorf professor Michael Adelbulner (1702-79), and he discussed his work frequently with Georg Leonhard Huth (1705-1761), a Nuremberg physician and naturalist. Huth translated passages from Réaumur and other authors for Rösel, who could not read French. Rösel also read works by other German insect students: above all, [Friedrich Christian] Lesser's Insecto-Theologia and the series on German insects by Johann Leonhard Frisch.' (81)
'Rösel certainly took his natural theology seriously. Though he never learned Latin or attended university, he studied William Derham's (1657-1735) Physico-Theology by attending Adelbulner's German-language lectures on the book.' (92)
