“Artist and scientist,
Anna C. Atkins,
With nature’s cyanotypes,
Technique refines.
Photos botanical
Yield tome expansible:
Blueprints for future work
Here intertwine.”
The final “Twitter biography” poem from NaPoWriMo 2022 was posted on 15 April 2022 and noted some of the many accomplishments of botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (1799-1871).
“Artist and scientist, /
Anna C. Atkins, /
With nature’s cyanotypes, /
Technique refines…”
Anna Christian Atkins was an English artist and scientist; she explored multiple interdisciplinary overlaps of scientific investigations and illustrations. She learned the cyanotype technique from its inventor, a friend of her family: Sir John Herschel. Cyanotyping is a photochemical process that takes advantage of the light-sensitivity of certain iron-containing compounds to generate images on a deep blue (cyan) background.
Since Atkins was skilled at drawing and illustrating, she had particular insight into the value that a photographic technique could provide with scientific samples that defied hand-drawn record-keeping: in her words, such species were often “so minute that accurate drawings of them [were] very difficult to make.” She used the cyanotype technique to precisely record aspects of several natural specimens.
“Photos botanical /
Yield tome expansible: /
Blueprints for future work /
Here intertwine.”
Atkins used the cyanotype technique to develop a “tome expansible,” a book that is generally accepted to be the first compilation of photographic images: Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions. With some poetic license, this collection became “photos botanical” in the verse. Pages from this book can be seen at the link and provide clear images of the intertwining, delicate samples of interest.
Atkins’s book was an important historical document in its own right and also set the stage for the use of photography in scientific research for years to come. The last few lines note this metaphorically and highlight the fact that the cyanotype process is the same chemistry behind the blueprint process.
Chemphasis 