Illustrated buffon. Book: "Illustrated Buffon, or Natural History of Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, and Certain Reptiles"

Buffon Georges Louis Leclerc: Buffon Illustrated, or Natural History of Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, and Certain Reptiles.

This unique book (the publication of which one could not even dream of) included articles about animals from the multi-volume "Natural History" by Comte de Buffon, an outstanding French naturalist and writer of the 18th century.

The illustrations by the famous animal painter Benjamin Rabier were made for an edition published in Paris in 1913.

The dynamic, sharp drawings of Rabier turned out to be surprisingly consonant with Buffon's unhurried reasoning about the impudence of jackals, the meekness of gray lizards, or the pitiful and wretched life of an ordinary heron. Under one cover, the aristocratic and thorough 18th century and the impetuous and at that time still very young century of the 20th century met.

Vivid and heartfelt descriptions of animals (which today look amazing), emotional drawings, a voluminous reference apparatus, fine editorial work and excellent printing work.

This is a visual history of the development of science, an amazing collectible book, a gift for children and adults. Incredible book, unlike any of the modern ones. About the devotion and affection of dogs and cats, the coldness and deceit of animals. Animals here get human features, a wonderful example of belles-lettres. The book's value lies not in the accuracy of the biological descriptions, which change over time, but in the approach. You can see where science began.

The book is very expensive - an option for a memorable gift.

The book is large, size 300x230, 176 pages, hardcover, color illustrations.

"Illustrated Buffon, or Natural history of tetrapods, birds, fish and some reptiles" is, first of all, a unique opportunity to touch the origins of modern natural science and look at the world around us through the eyes of a European of the Enlightenment.

This book differs from the modern zoological atlases familiar to us. Although the editors did a great job, trying to bring Buffon's text closer to current knowledge about the world around him. Very delicate notes are responsible for this, which do not distract attention, but allow parents to avoid embarrassing situations and answer all questions that arise as they read the book.

For many years in a row, Joseph, servant of Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, owner of Montbard, Marquis of Rougemont, Viscount of Quinn, owner of Mairia, Garans, Berg and other lands, director of the Botanical Gardens in Paris, member of the French Academy, Royal Academy of Sciences, and so on. and so on, woke up his master at exactly 5 in the morning, not paying attention to the abuse and desperate resistance of the latter. For this, Joseph was entitled to a separate reward. Having woken up, Georges Louis Leclerc Comte de Buffon put on his best outfit, combed his hair as if he were going to a solemn meeting, and went to his office - to create in the face of the Universe and posterity.

For more than forty years he worked on the monumental "Natural History", which was supposed to contain "... everything that is found in the Universe ... a monstrous multitude of tetrapods, birds, fish, insects, plants, minerals." He re-read what he had written several times and put off resting. “There is no need to rush,” Buffon repeated to his secretary, “in a few days your eyes will be refreshed, you will see everything better and you will always find something to correct.” The famous naturalist, a member of many academies, cared not only about the actual accuracy, but also about the style of his works. Perhaps that is why Buffon's study aroused keen interest not only among his colleagues, but also among the general public.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the French publisher Garnier decided to publish the most interesting articles of the huge Natural History. He offered to illustrate the book to Benjamin Rabier, the largest animal painter. Rabier collaborated with children's magazines, published La Fontaine's fables, and drew his own books.

Rabier devoted several years to working on a grandiose project. He spent hours watching animals in the Paris Botanical Gardens and the Vincennes Zoo - because now his task was maximum reliability! The animals in this book do not cry, do not laugh, definitely cannot speak, and yet Rabier's drawings are infinitely far from "reference" illustrations, indifferently fixing the length of the paws, body structure, coat color - for much more restrained than in children's books or fables images feel the temperament, individual traits, even if not of every animal - of every species.

This book went to the Russian reader for more than a century. We have tried to translate it as it would have been done at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, to convey the charm of Buffon's style. Having shoveled mountains of reference books and textbooks on zoology, countless "Pictures from the Life of Animals", even books on hunting, we compiled something like a "Russian-Russian" dictionary: what turns did they use then, talking about the habits or lifestyle of animals? About their voice? Appearances? We learned that in those days birds and animals had "gastronomic whims of taste", that the bream "of a quiet and very meek disposition", the badger "keeps its hole in an unusual order", sea magpies "strictly maintain politeness among themselves and for non-observance of decency produce a desperate fight", sparrows are tall, "the gluttony of the cubs brings a lot of trouble to their parents", and the hare is "remarkably sensitive, cunning, angry and fruitful." We kept calling for help from the National Corpus of the Russian Language, asking if we could use this or that expression at the end of the 19th century. In general, it was difficult, but interesting. And we really hope that reading this book will be just as exciting as working on it.

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BUFFON Georges Louis Leclerc

(Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc)
(1707-1788), French naturalist, popularizer of science. Born September 7, 1707 in Montbart (Burgundy). He studied law, first at the Jesuit College in Dijon, then at the University of Dijon. Later he studied at the medical faculty of the University of Angers. He traveled a lot in France and Italy, sometimes in the company of the English Duke of Kingston and his mentor N. Hickman. It was the latter that aroused Buffon's interest in natural science. In 1735, under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences, Buffon's translation of Vegetable Staticks by the English researcher S. Gales was published. This important work, summarizing the results of many of the author's experiments in the field of plant physiology, was a rare exception against the background of the overwhelming majority of botanical studies of that time, which amounted to attempts to systematize plants. Buffon, in his preface to the translation of Gales's book, sharply criticized the narrowness of this approach. In 1738 Buffon completed the translation of Newton's work on the method of "fluxions" (differential and integral calculus). This work was published by the Academy in 1740. In the same year, Buffon was elected a member of the Royal Society of London and until the end of his days he maintained close contacts with British science. In 1739-1788 he was director of the Botanical Gardens in Paris. Buffon died in Paris on April 16, 1788. Buffon's main work is the General and Private Natural History (Histoire Naturelle, gnrale et particulire); 36 of its volumes were published during the lifetime of the scientist (the first of them began to appear in 1749), and 8 were published posthumously. The theory of the evolution of the Earth, which was intensively discussed at that time, opens this work. The earth, according to Buffon, was formed from that part of the sun that broke away from it after the collision of the sun with a comet. First, a condensation of a gaseous cloud occurred, then continents began to form, and this process continues to this day. Buffon's views met with such a sharp condemnation of theologians that later he was forced to expound his theories more carefully. In the second volume, devoted to man, the observations of many travelers and researchers are discussed in detail, indicating that the diversity of customs, beliefs, physical characteristics of people and the color of their skin is due primarily to the natural effect of "climate". At the same time, “climate” was understood not only as conditions determined by the geographical latitude of a given area and height above sea level, but also its openness to winds, proximity to large water bodies, not to mention average temperature, precipitation and humidity. Several hundred pages on this subject, together with an extensive appendix, give a good idea of ​​18th-century anthropology. The nature of the entire publication undertaken by Buffon is most fully reflected in the volumes devoted to the world of animals and plants. He not only described many animals and plants, but also expressed the idea of ​​the variability of species (as opposed to the views of K. Linnaeus), of the unity of the animal and plant worlds. This work put Buffon in the first row of Charles Darwin's predecessors. According to Buffon, organisms that have common ancestors undergo long-term changes under the influence of the environment and become less and less similar to each other. In 1778, Buffon's book On the Ages of Nature (Les poques de la nature) was published, covering a wide range of problems - from cosmology and anthropology to world history; it was addressed to the general public. Buffon's preoccupation with the form of presenting scientific questions was reflected in his Discourse on Style (Discours sur le style, 1753), timed to coincide with his election to the French Academy. Buffon made a bold criticism of the language that was then accepted in science, and advocated its simple and understandable form, the most suitable for a clear presentation of thoughts. Style, according to Buffon, is "the man himself", and not some kind of external decoration. In his scientific predilections, Buffon followed his age: from mathematics and physics to the sciences of nature. However, chemistry, which at that time was undergoing a period of rapid development, did not fall into the sphere of Buffon's interests, mainly due to the works of Priestley and Lavoisier. In his letter to Madison in 1788, T. Jefferson wrote about Buffon's attitude to chemistry: "He is inclined to consider it as a simple concoction." This remark in its own way characterizes Buffon well: he could write an impressive work within the framework of what was already well known by that time, but he was not always able to appreciate the successes of his contemporaries. During Buffon's lifetime, scholars treated him with reverence and conservative theologians with suspicion. The general public read his writings. Later, preference began to be given to other authors, but Buffon's authority among lovers of natural history remained unquestioned for a long time.
LITERATURE
Buffon J. General and private natural history, ch. 1-10. St. Petersburg, 1802-1827 Kanaev I.I. Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon. M. - L., 1966

BUFFON Georges Louis Leclerc

(Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc)
(1707-1788), French naturalist, popularizer of science. Born September 7, 1707 in Montbart (Burgundy). He studied law, first at the Jesuit College in Dijon, then at the University of Dijon. Later he studied at the medical faculty of the University of Angers. He traveled a lot in France and Italy, sometimes in the company of the English Duke of Kingston and his mentor N. Hickman. It was the latter that aroused Buffon's interest in natural science. In 1735, under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences, Buffon's translation of Vegetable Staticks by the English researcher S. Gales was published. This important work, summarizing the results of many of the author's experiments in the field of plant physiology, was a rare exception against the background of the overwhelming majority of botanical studies of that time, which amounted to attempts to systematize plants. Buffon, in his preface to the translation of Gales's book, sharply criticized the narrowness of this approach. In 1738 Buffon completed the translation of Newton's work on the method of "fluxions" (differential and integral calculus). This work was published by the Academy in 1740. In the same year, Buffon was elected a member of the Royal Society of London and until the end of his days he maintained close contacts with British science. In 1739-1788 he was director of the Botanical Gardens in Paris. Buffon died in Paris on April 16, 1788. Buffon's main work is the General and Private Natural History (Histoire Naturelle, gnrale et particulire); 36 of its volumes were published during the lifetime of the scientist (the first of them began to appear in 1749), and 8 were published posthumously. The theory of the evolution of the Earth, which was intensively discussed at that time, opens this work. The earth, according to Buffon, was formed from that part of the sun that broke away from it after the collision of the sun with a comet. First, a condensation of a gaseous cloud occurred, then continents began to form, and this process continues to this day. Buffon's views met with such a sharp condemnation of theologians that later he was forced to expound his theories more carefully. In the second volume, devoted to man, the observations of many travelers and researchers are discussed in detail, indicating that the diversity of customs, beliefs, physical characteristics of people and the color of their skin is due primarily to the natural effect of "climate". At the same time, “climate” was understood not only as conditions determined by the geographical latitude of a given area and height above sea level, but also its openness to winds, proximity to large water bodies, not to mention average temperature, precipitation and humidity. Several hundred pages on this subject, together with an extensive appendix, give a good idea of ​​18th-century anthropology. The nature of the entire publication undertaken by Buffon is most fully reflected in the volumes devoted to the world of animals and plants. He not only described many animals and plants, but also expressed the idea of ​​the variability of species (as opposed to the views of K. Linnaeus), of the unity of the animal and plant worlds. This work put Buffon in the first row of Charles Darwin's predecessors. According to Buffon, organisms that have common ancestors undergo long-term changes under the influence of the environment and become less and less similar to each other. In 1778, Buffon's book On the Ages of Nature (Les poques de la nature) was published, covering a wide range of problems - from cosmology and anthropology to world history; it was addressed to the general public. Buffon's preoccupation with the form of presenting scientific questions was reflected in his Discourse on Style (Discours sur le style, 1753), timed to coincide with his election to the French Academy. Buffon made a bold criticism of the language that was then accepted in science, and advocated its simple and understandable form, the most suitable for a clear presentation of thoughts. Style, according to Buffon, is "the man himself", and not some kind of external decoration. In his scientific predilections, Buffon followed his age: from mathematics and physics to the sciences of nature. However, chemistry, which at that time was undergoing a period of rapid development, did not fall into the sphere of Buffon's interests, mainly due to the works of Priestley and Lavoisier. In his letter to Madison in 1788, T. Jefferson wrote about Buffon's attitude to chemistry: "He is inclined to consider it as a simple concoction." This remark in its own way characterizes Buffon well: he could write an impressive work within the framework of what was already well known by that time, but he was not always able to appreciate the successes of his contemporaries. During Buffon's lifetime, scholars treated him with reverence and conservative theologians with suspicion. The general public read his writings. Later, preference began to be given to other authors, but Buffon's authority among lovers of natural history remained unquestioned for a long time.
LITERATURE
Buffon J. General and private natural history, ch. 1-10. St. Petersburg, 1802-1827 Kanaev I.I. Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon. M. - L., 1966