The American Museum of Natural History created two informative videos about Natural Histories, an exhibition about scientific illustration, naming historically important pieces. Curator Melanie Stiassney states that illustration is able to subtly highlight the features which are important for a particular species in a way photography necessarily can’t. In some cases the depicted species is extinct today, so our only way to learn about them is to read and look at the historic illustration.
Additionally they created a video about printing techniques for historic scientific illustration. It explains how woodcut, engraving, lithography and chromolithography work.
Woodcut: Originally used as a fabric printing technique, but got adopted by book illustrators. It worked like a stamp.
Engraving: Gravers or burins were used to inscribe lines into copper plates. Ink would be spread onto the plate. Excess ink would be wiped off and a damp sheet of paper would be placed on top of the plate. A roller would be used to put pressure on the paper to press the ink onto the sheet.
Lithography: For lithography very fine grained stone, usually lime, was used.
Chromolithography: Printing in color by using multiple stones: one stone for each color. Later on a technique using only four stones (three colors + black) was invented.
