Strikingly original and abundantly illustrated, The Art of Biodiversity surveys the golden age of natural history art, exploring the alliance between scientists and artists that first revealed the astonishing diversity of life on Earth.With more than 330 color illustrations of surpassing beauty, this book reveals a story about art that’s not in the art history books, and a story about science that’s missing from histories ...

Between 1700 and 1900, an art movement unveiled nature's great secret: the global diversity of life-forms. Centuries before the word "biodiversity" existed, naturalists began to glimpse the reality that lay behind Charles Darwin's lyrical evocation of nature's "endless forms most beautiful." The naturalists recruited artists to create a family album of Earth, with every picture a precise drawing of a species of plant or animal.The Art of Biodiversity recounts key chapters ...