Find in Library

We focus on the image’s status and in particular on drawing as a vehicle of knowledge in botanic articles presenting the discovery of species, in publications by the National Museum of Natural History (Paris). Through botanical imagery produced within the context of a specimen’s discovery, we focus on the transformations of a natural object into an object of knowledge that is organized, ranked and meaningful. This object will be part of a collective and shared knowledge. Our research question is: how can we discover a specimen through its image? We need to remember that this image is not isolated: it is accompanied by a text; both constitute the paper. This question raises another one: how do we pass from an object of the natural world, a specimen as an individual, to a constructed object and therefore a type? How does this type become a meaningful object in a cognitive activity? We wish to approach the notions of perception and dynamic transformations from the point of view not only of transcendental phenomenology (Husserl), but also of semiotic theory (Greimas, Groupe µ, Beyaert-Geslin, Fontanille).