To Recreate a 17th-Century Masterwork, an Entomologist at the National Museum of Natural History Got Creative with Butterflies, Bees and a Bit of Rosemary

The display will be featured in a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art as part of a historic collaboration along the National Mall

In the 1600s, European cities like Antwerp were at the nexus of both art and science. Vast trade networks and expanding colonial empires brought animals and plants from around the world to northern Europe. This influx of new species not only transformed how scientists thought about the natural world but also inspired generations of masterful artists, who began incorporating beasts both small and large into their compositions.

This exciting era is explored in the new exhibition “Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the Natural World.” The show is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the National Gallery of Art and the National Museum of Natural History. It will open on May 18 and run through November 2.

Situated right down the National Mall from NMNH in the Gallery’s west building, “Little Beasts” will feature nearly 75 prints, drawings and paintings from celebrated Flemish artists like Jan van Kessel, Joris Hoefnagel and his son Jacob. Many of these masterworks were from the National Gallery’s collection, including a rarely displayed copy of Joris Hoefnagel’s “Four Elements,” a collection of nearly 300 watercolor paintings depicting a menagerie of different species that correspond with land, water, air and fire.

To add context to the critters within the frames, “Little Beasts” will also display dozens of specimens from the NMNH collection, ranging from seashells and shrimp to a parrot, porcupine and even a monkey.

Roughly two-thirds of the scientific specimens in the exhibition are insects. This is because many 16th- and 17th-century Flemish artists were fascinated by what they called beestjes, which translates to “little beasts.” For example, Jacob Hoefnagel often made species like elephant beetles and hummingbird hawk-moths the stars of his engravings.

“I consider that a testament to the importance of insects as inspiration for artists of the period, with their diversity in shape, form and colors,” said Floyd Shockley, the collection manager of the museum’s Department of Entomology.

According to Shockley, the artists featured in “Little Beasts” were carefully illustrating insects more than a century before Carl Linnaeus, in 1758, created binomial nomenclature, the two-word system researchers still use today to name animals based on their genus and species. “These artists were documenting insect diversity in all its complexity much earlier than science even had names for them,” Shockley said.

Few were better at depicting insects than van Kessel, who produced postcard-sized paintings that were often packed with butterflies, caterpillars, flies and wasps. One of the centerpieces of the new exhibition is van Kessel’s 1653 painting “Insects and a Sprig of Rosemary,” which depicts a dozen different insects milling about a flowering branch of rosemary.

To contextualize van Kessel’s work, curators at the gallery asked Shockley to identify the various insects featured in the painting. Van Kessel’s incredible eye for detail made things easy. “It was very clear that van Kessel had spent a lot of time carefully studying his entomological subjects,” Shockley said.

As he tracked down the various insect specimens displayed in the painting, Shockley decided to recreate the entire ensemble. He positioned each insect and pinned the specimens in place. To tie the tableau together, he cut a piece off of an artificial rosemary plant he ordered online. (Real rosemary was not an option because it wilts quickly and could introduce pests.) He was pleasantly surprised by how the plastic rosemary snippet matched the piece of shrub that anchors van Kessel’s original.

The tableau caught the attention of curators at the gallery, who insisted it be displayed right next to van Kessel’s original in “Little Beasts.”

The placement of the rendering is surreal for Shockley. Although he does his own line illustrations for research publications, Shockley does not consider himself an artist. “To have specimens I worked on featured at the National Gallery of Art next to the masterworks of artists like van Kessel is certainly humbling,” Shockley said.

The inclusion of Shockley’s tableau in the new exhibition underlies how art and science remained intertwined today. Centuries after van Kessel and the Hoefnagels were carefully depicting beestjes, researchers still rely on scientific illustrations to describe mysterious beasts that are new to science.

Jack Tamisiea | | Read More

Jack Tamisiea is a Science Communications Specialist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. In addition to covering all things natural history for the museum's blog, Smithsonian Voices, he tracks media coverage and coordinates filming activities for the museum's Office of Communications and Public Affairs. Jack recently completed his masters in science writing at Johns Hopkins University and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Scientific American, National Geographic and other science-focused publications. In his free time, he loves exploring the outdoors with a sketchbook and camera. You can read more of Jack's work at https://jacktamisiea.com.