{"product_id":"william-bartrams-visual-wonders-the-drawings-of-an-american-naturalist-elizabeth-a-athens-paperback","title":"William Bartram's Visual Wonders: The Drawings of an American Naturalist -- Elizabeth A. Athens, Paperback","description":"Winner, The Athenaeum of Philadelphia 2024 Literary Award for Nonfiction \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePennsylvania naturalist William Bartram (1739-1823) is best known as the author of a travelogue describing his botanizing journey through the American South in the late eighteenth century. Writing was not, however, Bartram's only or even preferred method of recording the natural world around him. His deeply unconventional drawings, depicting sentient plants and hybrid organic forms, lie at the heart of his understanding of nature. With this book, Elizabeth Athens considers the strangeness of Bartram's graphic enterprise, exploring the essential role his renderings played in his natural history. For Bartram, the making and interpretation of figures on a surface was a dynamic and collaborative relationship between nature, the observing artist-naturalist, and the audience. This book offers the first in-depth investigation of Bartram's drawing practice as central to his understanding of nature. Through an examination of Bartram's approach to botanical and zoological representation, Athens highlights the struggle between different modes of seeing nature in eighteenth-century Enlightenment science.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Elizabeth A. Athens\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Pittsburgh Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/28\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 264\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.20lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.40h x 6.70w x 0.70d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780822967613\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eElizabeth Athens \u003c\/b\u003eis an art historian and curator based at the University of Connecticut. She has written extensively on the overlap of the arts and sciences in British North America and the United States, with a special focus on the visual and material culture of natural history. She has also been recognized nationally and internationally for her reinterpretation of the portrait galleries at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, which holds one of the most important collections of early American portraiture.\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Elizabeth A. Athens","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46915833397476,"sku":"9780822967613","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0611\/9587\/8628\/files\/9780822967613.jpg?v=1761764130","url":"https:\/\/bookandmortar.com\/products\/william-bartrams-visual-wonders-the-drawings-of-an-american-naturalist-elizabeth-a-athens-paperback","provider":"BookandMortar","version":"1.0","type":"link"}