Visual Representation in Earth Sciences History after “The Emergence”

Abstract

Abstract Starting from the analysis of Martin Rudwick’s pionieristic The emergence of a visual language for geological science (1976), this Introduction tries to assess how Rudwick’s suggestions were received by a comprehensive review of what has been published on the topic of visual culture in the earth sciences. The analysis includes studies dealing with maps, sections, landscapes, representations of specimens. We show how historians’ curiosity about cartography has grown constantly (e.g. Kenneth Taylor and David Oldroyd). The studies on geological sections include, among others, Rudwick (2005 and 2008), Gordon Craig and Kerry Magruder and recent contributions dealing with Leonardo da Vinci and Athanasius Kircker. The consideration of essays focused on geological views and landscapes include an overview of the outcomes and limits of studies devoted to the representations of the Vesuvius. Studies dealing with the pictures of rocks, minerals and fossils are considered in their relationships with the results of general works on pictures of natural specimens. The review ends with studies by art historians in the field of geological iconography and pointing out less studied aspects and possible future developments, from the modes of visualising data that have arisen with the introduction of digital technologies to the need of a better studies of geological iconography before the 18th century, a period which the studies collected in this issue of Nuncius are concentrated on.