Ford, Rebecca. “Images of the Earth,
Images of Man: The Mineralogical Plates of the Encyclopédie.” Histoires de La Terre : Earth Sciences and French Culture 1740-1940, edited by Louise Lyle and David McCallam, Editions Rodopi B.V.; Brill Academic Publishers, 2008, pp. 57-73. https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789401206419/B9789401206419-s007.xml.
Ford remarks here that the majority of the research on the Encyclopédie’s plates have been done on those of the practical arts where a workshop is provided as a vignette and subsequent pages divide machinery and tools into individual parts and pieces. However, Ford wishes to focus on the mineralogical plates; in other words, those depicted the natural phenomena of the Earth and of Nature. She briefly provides context into the author(s) of the natural history articles as well as the overseers of the corresponding plates, including the Baron d’Holbach and a conflict between Diderot and Daubenton. There is also a section comparing and contrasting the stylistic and organizational choices between the mineralogical and practical arts plates including number of pages devoted to each subject, sources, and relevancy of topic. Ford focuses on the Encyclopédie’s use of human figures in the Earth science plates and their effects on how the eighteenth century related to the relatively new study of Earth’s history (e.g. that nature was seen as both a piece of scenery to admire as well as an unexplored area to conquer).
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Main Classification: Plates
1. Quotations are in French.
1/6/2021: Created page.