 |
| E F Shute - Paulo Afonso Falls - 1850 |
A third 18th century view of nature is offered by the botanical drawings of Parkinson, faithful to the classical principles of natural science. Parkinson took part in the voyage of circumnavigation by Captain James Cook, commissioned by the Royal Society of London under the patronage of King George m, which was to be the model for the scientific voyages of the 19th century composed of scientists and artists. While the ports of Brazil remained closed under the mercantilist policies of Portugal, some of the global circumnavigation expeditions touched the coastline of Brazil, when the opportunity was seized to produce visual records.
The Natural History of Linnaeus and the kingdom of botany in general afford the best example of this kind of knowledge of the natural universe, for which art and science were competing. The epistemological method of classical science proclaimed that facts were discoverable through seeing. The eye assumed a central role in the task of identifying, comparing and classifying the phenomena of nature (Figs. 12 and 13).
 |
| Count of Clarac - Virgin Forest |
Linnaeus taught that nature in tropical countries should be studied in loco. In order to observe the qualities of species, they must be transformed into quantities; the "figure" formed by a plant must be perceived with reference to the quantity of its components and its size; it must be described in each one of its elements and in the relationship between them. As well as a comparative analysis of the internal proportions of a single plant, it is also necessary to compare plants with each other in order to find their place in the overall scheme of the universe, which in this way is conceived as an ordered and continuing cosmos. Concepts drawn from mathematics are used to compare nature with regular figures: the circle, the hexagon, the triangle anticipate seeing, which seeks to understand how plant forms affect geometrical figures.
 |
| Johann Moritz Rugendas Indian Shooting a Jaguar with Arrows |
Seeing is not a natural occurrence. As a historical fact, "vision" is always connected with value criteria and human modes of operation. The classical view held that drawing becomes a way of testing exterior truth by means of the senses and adjusting it by the use of reason, so that what is seen can be defined by unchanging and logical rules.
Form is therefore something capable of being analysed and perceived within natural phenomena.