Women in Science

[Toska]

Great post!

Marianne North


From Listverse:

We’re all familiar with the prim-and-proper ideal of Victorian womanhood, but Marianne North loved kicking down cliches. In a world where snagging a husband was considered a woman’s greatest achievement, North declared marriage was a “terrible experiment.” In her nearly 60 years on Earth, she never married nor had any kids. Instead, North dedicated her life to painting plants.North’s life as an artist began in 1867, when she took her first painting class. She was immediately addicted, comparing painting to “dram drinking.” North also loved botany and wanted to travel the planet, capturing wild flora on her canvas. At 39, she took her inheritance from her father and set off to explore the world.While most Victorian ladies were suffocating in England, North was putting 19th-century adventurers to shame. In 13 years, she visited America, Brazil, Japan, India, and many other countries. For the most part, she traveled alone. If someone insisted on going along to keep her safe, she found a way to escape her escort and sneak off alone into the wilderness.North wandered until a plant caught her eye. Whipping out her canvas and oils, she set to work. Unlike other botanical artists of her day, North didn’t paint a single flower on a white backdrop. Instead, she recorded everything in the environment. With her subject in the foreground, North filled the canvas with additional flowers, rocks, and bugs. Her style was highly controversial, but it gave her paintings a feel of realism, and that was especially appreciated in the days before color photography.Despite the haters, North’s work was wildly popular with the public, even drawing the attention of Charles Darwin, who asked North paint the plants of Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania. In addition to its beauty, North’s artwork is so special because she painted many specimens now extinct. And during her career, she captured quite a few plants. She created over 1,000 paintings, 833 of which were placed in the Marianne North Gallery, an amazing exhibit you can visit in the Kew Gardens today.