'The Girl Who Drew Butterflies'

By Joyce Sidman

" Because almost everyone is acquainted with the silkworm, and because it is the most useful and noblest of all worms and caterpillars, I have here recorded its transformation." M. M. "

Maria Sibylla Merian, a 17th-century  artist who grew up in the 1600's taught herself art and science during a day when many were unfamiliar with the true origin of insects. "But in Maria's time, nearly two hundred years before photography was invented, documenting research was much more difficult. A good naturalist needed more than just a scientific mind - she needed artistic skill." The hours which Maria spent gathering and studying insects helped her to understand both science and art better.

Have you ever wondered why the newspaper or media businesses of today are often called 'the press'? Maria, born one year before the end of the thirty-years' war into a Frankfurt, Germany print business family. she grew to understand well the intricacies of the printing press that makes books, newspapers, magazines and flyers and other paper printable media for personal or commercial use. However, during the 1600's a printing press was very different from those operated during the present century. A master engraver then spent hours using a tool known as a burin to carve information and designs onto a copper plate. A very meticulous and long-drawn-out process which took hours would eventually produce an inked copper plate which paper would be laid upon and pressed through. This operated much like the antique ringer washer of this past century which deeply pressed clothing clean, and similarly a print would be removed from the press just as clothes from a washer and hung up to dry.

The German population now halved by the war. Maria's father dies three years after she is born. One year later her mother married a professional painter named Jacob Marrel. As a teenager Maria began raising and studying silkworms on her own. She learned all that she could about art and painting from her new father. During this time, a scientific societal marvel about butterflies and caterpillars known as Metamorphosis naturalis Insectorum is published by Johannes Goedart (Hude-hart) in 1662. Three years later, Maria marries aritist and publisher Johann Andreas Graff (Grawf) and despite the outbreak of the black death, she goes on to teach private painting courses and publishes her own books.

Maria's scientific book volumes about flowers such as Neues Blumenbuch (New book of flowers) and Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung, und sonderbare Blumen-nahrung (The wondrous transformation of caterpillars and their particular nourishment from flowers) were both innovative and highly informed science book treasures. The 1705 publication of Metamorphosis insectorium Surinamensium proved that she was born to understand science in a scholarly way and even with no real formative education, it was found that she was a profound learner. About 40 years after Sir Isaac Newton published the theory of gravity, she passed on into her heavenly divine place during the year of 1717. Tsar Peter the Great of St. Petersburg, Russia purchased her watercolors for his private collection.

Author Ariel O'Suilleabhain's mother was a young woman in Zweibrücken, Germany during the 1950's. whose original dream was to become a worldwide reporter and photojournalist. For those of you too young to know, this was shortly after WW II., and at a time when the wall of West Germany was still up - and the town while beautiful now had challenges that young Mary and the Jewish people face today. i wrote a poem about my mother Mary which honors her for Mother's Day which was published in a local newspaper recently. Although she went to her heavenly divine place suddenly and unexpectedly last summer; it is my most eternal hope and deepfelt prayer that her memory ever be a blessing on earth.

Poem For a Good Mother

A (Sapphic) Sestina by Ariel O'Suilleabhain

For it is from your dear womb from which I came

Your dear sweet love became the best breath of life

Through your courage I could be somebody now

I would be a known.

If your love for me had gone away and hid

I would not have lived to see this very day

I would have sorrowfully enough died away

I would have lost hope.

Your love for me never ever lost hope for me once

Your motherly dedication always there

That enduring love others could not prevent

From that warmth came I.

I will pretend that you are alive today

That I may imagine you standing here now

And thank you from my very heart for the way

You helped me to grow.