March 2007    

Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis Author: Kim Todd Publisher: Harcourt Trade Cloth $27.00 (328 p.) ISBN: 9780151011087 B&T         YBP Art and science merge on several levels throughout Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis. Author Kim Todd, who holds an MFA in creative non-fiction and an MS in environmental studies, weaves a story that is artfully written, yet scientifically accurate. The subject of this biography, Mary Sibylla Merian, born in 1647 to two publishers and later taught to paint by her artist step-father, spent her lifetime observing and recording (in watercolor and words) the metamorphosis of insects, particularly those of butterflies. Though her paintings are beautifully rendered, Merian's motivation in doing them was to record an accurate representation of the lifecycle of the insects she observed - and there were many. As a teenager, when the theories of spontaneous generation were still being debated, Merian began her study of insects and their lifecycles. She kept a study book all her life in which she recorded her observations, both from the field and from insects that she kept in her house, observing and painting them as they went from stage to stage. During her married life in Germany and Amsterdam, she recorded the metamorphosis of hundreds of insects and published three volumes of her paintings and notes. The importance of Merian's work lies in the way she worked. She showed butterflies not just as decorations (which many artistic contemporaries did), but as part of an ecological community. She was equally interested in painting larvae, pupae and cocoons. Sometimes, rather than a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, flies would emerge. She painted this as well, and pondered the cause of it. While many of her scientific contemporaries used dissection and microscopes as their mode of study, she recorded the lifecycle of as many different insects as she could. She painted the plants that each insect lived on and ate from, as well as their predators. Through her paintings, the entire process can be seen. One of the things that makes this a strong biography are the parallels between Merian's life and the life of the creatures she studied. She went through a metamorphosis of her own at the age of 52 when, her children grown and her marriage ended, she decided to continue her study of metamorphosis in the South American rainforest of Surinam. Merian had seen cases of butterflies, still and stuck through with pins, from the New World and she wanted to paint them in their natural habitat. What she found there was, compared to Germany, a frenzy of life. Her paintings show webs of plants and predators. Spiders eat small ants, but large ants prey on small spiders. She trekked through the rainforest trying to paint as many things as possible, while understanding the complex web of life that was all around her. This expertly written book is a fascinating look into an early ecologically minded person, set in the context of the history of scientific theories of the time. -- Angie Beckett Published by YBP Library Services 999 Maple St., Contoocook, NH 03229 USA v: 800.258.3774   f: 603.746.5628 w: www.ybp.com   e: academia@ybp.com All rights reserved.