If you’ve ever seen a scientific name for an animal, like Tyrannosaurus rex or Canis lupus, you can thank Carl Linnaeus. In Systema Naturae, Linnaeus categorized life by species, genera, orders, classes, and kingdoms. While biological classification works differently now, Linnaeus’s categories and naming system have had lasting influence. But strangely, you won’t find many illustrations of plants and animals in Linnaeus’s works.
Their absence is notable because other scientists in this period frequently used illustrations in their work. Historians have debated whether Linnaeus was hostile towards illustration. Historian Isabelle Charmantier highlights a quote that has been interpreted this way. Writing about illustrations of genera, Linnaeus explained, “I absolutely reject them, although I confess that they are of great importance to boys and those who have more brainpan than brain…”
Some historians have also suggested that Linnaeus was simply bad at drawing and avoided it. But Charmantier believes that Linnaeus’s attitude and artistic skill have been misinterpreted. She argues that Linnaeus relied on visual representations at every stage of his career.
Unlike many of his wealthier peers, Linnaeus was largely self-taught in biology and drawing. Charmantier writes that he spent years immersed in books, painstakingly copying diagrams, tables, and illustrations into notebooks. But he also created his own drawings.
A drawing of a bat in the notebook Manuscripta Medica shows his learning process in action. While the body, head, and feet of the bat are almost charmingly bad, the wings and bone structure are quite detailed. It appears alongside John Ray’s description of quadrupeds, and Linnaeus compares the structures in the wing to feet, fingers, and thumbs. Charmantier argues that “the act of drawing helped him understand the object or plant he was studying.”
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In 1732, Linnaeus went on a scientific expedition to Lapland in Finland. His diary contains illustrations of animals, plants, and landscapes, and their quality varies. But Linnaeus was working “with no table, very little comfort, and most of the time drawing from memory what he had seen earlier in the day,” Charmantier writes. Illustrations of a crane fly and an owl show real skill.
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Quality was partly a function of his background, Charmantier explains, but he was quite capable, if it served his purpose in the moment. Linnaeus used visuals to learn and observe, and later to create and convey knowledge. His intentions and goals determined his choice of visual tools. In Systema Naturae, he attempted to organize an enormous amount of information about nature and to make it digestible and memorable. Because of this, he relied on tables and diagrams, which became maps of the natural world.
Charmantier argues that even Linnaeus’s written descriptions of genera used a visual logic. But a genus has too much variation to render in a drawing. Linnaeus’ comment about illustration was specifically about genera—not illustration in general—she points out. In fact, some of his other works contain plenty of illustrations, especially for depicting species. Far from being hostile to visualization, she writes, “his thinking was profoundly visual.”
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