William Bartram’s Visual Wonders: The Drawings of an American Naturalist

Athens gives a remarkably in-depth analysis of the style and technique of William Bartram that will particularly interest students of visual history. * Pennsylvania Heritage * William Bartram's visual wonders is a landmark contribution. Athens's meticulous scholarship reveals Bartram's visual practice as central to his exploration of nature and humanity's place within it. This book opens new pathways for understanding art, science, and imagination in early modern natural history, inspiring scholars and captivating general readers alike. * Archives of Natural History * This beautifully designed book published by University of Pittsburgh Press is itself a garden of delights, of creatures and teeming life, of art, close seeing and sharp perspectives. Athens’s work reflects the best of interdisciplinary scholarship exploring the interconnectedness of art and science in the early modern period. Its prose lucid, it is accessible to audiences from advanced undergraduates to more senior scholars. I highly recommend it. * The British Journal for the History of Science * Athens’s book traces the importance of the act of illustration in Bartram’s work—the focus that drawing requires to accurately render all the aspects of a plant or animal on paper. * Pennsylvania History * Beautifully written and deeply researched, William Bartram’s Visual Wonders presents a close reading of Bartram’s natural history illustrations and place in the transatlantic world of botanical exchange and knowledge formation. -- Romita Ray, Syracuse University Through exquisite formal analyses of Bartram’s drawings, coupled with rich historical considerations of his place in the tradition of botanical illustration and Enlightenment visual culture more broadly, this fascinating book connects Bartram’s innovative drawing practice to the development of his unique and startlingly modern perspective on the natural world. -- Christopher Iannini, Rutgers University