Cuvier, Georges.

Born in French-speaking Europe, Cuvier is known as an outstanding biologist, who founded scientific vertebrate paleontology and created the powerful scientific tool of comparative organismal biology. He was appointed as Professor of animal anatomy at the newly reformed French National Museum of Natural History, and managed to avoid the violence of the French revolution, serving under three opposing French governments . . . Revolution, Napoleonic, and monarchy.

Cuvier's view of biology was the functional integration of a whole organism. Cuvier was also the first person to demonstrate that by studying fossils and living animals in enough detail one could prove that the fossils came from species now extinct (this was not known for sure, before his work). An example of this is his comparative study of mammoths with living elephants, which proved that African and Indian elephants were different species, and that mammoths were yet another species, and thus extinct. However, he was against the theory of evolution.

One of his specific studies was the comparative anatomy and systematic arrangement of fish, describing five thousand species, (see below for a few of the illustrations), as well as a study of molluscs, and the study of mammal and reptile bones.

Click here for the Wikipedia page on Cuvier (including two portraits of him and a memorial bust).

Another beautiful fish illustration by Cuvier, who illustrates fish species with similar shape charateristics as well as a similar range of colors, on the same plate, making for aesthetically succesful art as well as accurate scientific depiction. Blacks and orange dominate the colors in this piece. (click the image to buy it).

 

 

 

Two more superb examples of Cuvier's fish illustrations. (click on the image to buy it).

 

More art by Cuvier.

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