The Metropolitan Museum of Art, August
A thick book, covered in leather, corners frayed and bent, lies propped open
inside the clear case, pages held in place
by thin translucent bands to reveal a ghost tracing of the Chorda filnm.
As graceful as if still wafted
by calm water, strands drift up the page from the node placed lower right.
Anna Atkins Tish (1799-1871) produced this
“first published book to be photographically printed and illustrated,”
A neon sign should dance
above the staid display – “This book was created by a WOMAN.” Instead
we are informed that in the 1840s
the study of algae was beginning to be systematized in William Harvey’s
unillustrated Manual of British Algae (1841).
She, (interloper) collected or was given algae by amateur scientists, placed it
wet onto light-sensitive paper
(undoubtedly coated by hand, her hand) and exposed it to light
before her “imaginative, elegant composition” revealed itself
in characteristic blue as she rinsed each cyanotype in water, flowers of the sea.
Published in Press1