Lesson 4 Find and Do What You Love
A Passion for Science and Art
Today, it is common knowledge that ____ go through an egg-caterpillar-pupa cycle.
However, until the 17th ____ many people regarded the butterfly and the caterpillar as entirely different creatures.
They believed ____ were evil creatures that came from mud.
Butterflies, on the other hand, were considered “summer birds,” and it was commonly believed that they just fell ____ the sky in warm weather and vanished in the fall.
In those days, one woman stood ____ as a pioneer.
Although having an interest in insects was considered odd and weird, she observed many cases of insect *metamorphosis and ____ these invaluable scientific observations through her unique paintings.
Her name was Maria Sibylla Merian.
Merian was born in 1647 in the city of Frankfurt, ____
When she ____ still little, she became very interested in painting flowers.
It is said that she once climbed over ____ wealthy neighbor’s wall to find flowers that she could paint.
She took ____ tulips without the owner’s permission.
She must have been ____ of how expensive they were at the time.
When little Maria confessed her act, the neighbor ____ to see the painting.
Seeing her ____ he was so impressed that he only asked for the painting as compensation.
When she was 13, Merian ____ to develop a keen interest in bugs.
It was unusual for a young girl to be passionate about caterpillars, spiders, and other insects, but Merian was obsessed to the point that she would sometimes watch them ____ weeks on end.
She carefully painted each step ____ their life cycles, depicting even subtle changes.
Even after Merian got married
Even after Merian got married and ____ children, her passion for insects did not die down.
She kept caterpillars and butterflies at ____ in order to study and paint them.
____ capture each moment of change, she spent many nights awake, watching and waiting.
In her house were so many plants and jars of insects that her kitchen began to look more like ____ research lab.
After almost ____ years of hard work, Merian published a book about insects in 1679.
There had already been books about insects, but ____ was special.
While no other books ____ ever depicted the full life cycle of insects, Merian’s showed each stage of metamorphosis in detail.
In addition, Merian revealed the relationships between living things by illustrating insects within ____ natural surroundings.
This was different from other drawings ____ the time, which displayed only single specimens on a plain background.
In an era when most scientists perceived plants and animals individually, Merian paid attention to how ____ fit together.
Many years passed and Merian moved to Amsterdam, where she was able to sell her paintings and view marvelous and exotic butterfly specimens that other enthusiasts had ____
However, seeing these lifeless creatures stuck in cases only made Merian desire to see ____ in their real habitat.
Finally, in June 1699, at 52 years of age, Merian and her youngest daughter got on a ship headed for Surinam, a territory belonging to the ____ in South America.
This was a bold challenge.
In addition to being a female naturalist in the male-dominated world of 17th-century ____ Merian was also setting out on an expedition with purely scientific goals before it became common.
She spent about ____ years in Surinam, exploring the rainforests.
Confronted with intense heat, fierce tropical storms, and dangerous animals such as tarantulas and flesh-eating fish, Merian ____ to collect every sample she could get.
In her ____ house, she kept the insects she brought out of the forests and made numerous descriptions and paintings.
Eventually she painted more than 90 ____ of insects and at least 60 species of plants.
With ____ paintings she published her life’s work, Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam, in 1705.
The book ____ Merian’s passion for both insects and painting.
It was a truly remarkable book for its ____ which contained colorful and detailed paintings of butterflies, bees, spiders, frogs, and even snakes.
One illustration shows a bright blue butterfly flying over the colorful flowers ____ a *pomegranate plant, with another butterfly sitting nearby and a caterpillar creeping down the flower stem.
Another depicts ____ spider webs stretched between tree branches, with tarantulas and ants attacking their prey.
When the book was published, it had a tremendous influence on ____ scientific understanding of insects at the time.
Some scientists
Some scientists even used her illustrations in the classification of ____
Her work also brought new life not just to insect ____ but to the art world.
Goethe, a ____ German poet, also must have been impressed by her work.
He praised ____ talent for weaving art and science together.
In spite of this success, the popularity of her work faded ____ her death.
It is thought that this was because she was ____ a professional researcher and had no formal education.
Furthermore, her work dealt with flowers and insects, not the historical ____ religious topics that prevailed in those days.
In the 20th century, however, ____ Sibylla Merian’s work was reevaluated.
Historians and artists began to recognize her extraordinary accomplishments and her passion that contributed ____ much to early modern science.
In recognition of her achievement, Germany put her portrait on ____ 500-mark bill, and today many schools there are named after her.
Maria Sibylla Merian was a naturalist whose passion for plants and insects left its mark ____ the science world.
While other scientists of the day were debating whether or not insects grew out of ____ she demonstrated the stages of metamorphosis.
To the art world, Merian was one of the first to show the artistic power ____ nature.
Despite the doubts, suspicion, and ridicule she faced for ____ so different from “typical” women, Merian is now known as one of the greatest scientific illustrators in history.