Alberto Manguel, author of The Library at Night In these days of doom and gloom, I can think of nothing more rejoicing than Caspar Henderson’s magical book.”
It celebrates the playful imagination of the universe, capable of dreaming up the zebrafish and the yeti crab it also celebrates our delight in reading in claws and feathers lessons about our own miraculous self.
“ The Book of Barely Imagined Beings is one that Pliny would have envied, Darwin applauded, and Borges relished. These and other strange and surprising species invite readers to reflect on what we value-or fail to value-and what we might change.Ī powerful combination of wit, cutting-edge natural history, and philosophical meditation, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings is an infectious and inspiring celebration of the sheer ingenuity and variety of life in a time of crisis and change. The waterbear, meanwhile, is among nature’s “extreme survivors,” able to withstand a week unprotected in outer space. The yeti crab, for example, uses its furry claws to farm the bacteria on which it feeds. The Book of Barely Imagined Beings transports readers to a world of real creatures that seem as if they should be made up-that are somehow more astonishing than anything we might have imagined. But whereas medieval bestiaries were often based on folklore and myth, the creatures that abound in Henderson’s book-from the axolotl to the zebrafish-are, with one exception, very much with us, albeit sometimes in depleted numbers. With The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Caspar Henderson offers readers a fascinating, beautifully produced modern-day menagerie. But from the infamous honey badger to the giant squid, animals continue to captivate us with the things they can do and the things they cannot, what we know about them and what we don’t. Today, we no longer fear sea monsters or banshees. But bestiaries are more than just zany zoology-they are artful attempts to convey broader beliefs about human beings and the natural order. The exquisite refinement of the faces in the illumination is echoed in those of Anna and Mary in the Visitation group, with their delicate features and smoothly rounded, subtly painted cheeks.From medieval bestiaries to Borges’s Book of Imaginary Beings, we’ve long been enchanted by extraordinary animals, be they terrifying three-headed dogs or asps impervious to a snake charmer’s song. Pierpont Morgan: the Visitation group (17.190.724), of about 1310, attributed to Master Heinrich of Constance, and the Vierge Ouvrante (17.190.185), of about 1300, with paintings on the insides of the hinged panels illustrating scenes from the Infancy of Christ. Our illumination was an especially welcome addition to the Metropolitan's collection because of two well-known and stylistically related Middle and Upper Rhenish polychromed wood sculptures, both also the gifts of J. Another cutting from the same manuscript is now in the J. Common to the Metropolitan Museum's leaf and the Gradual are the foliate terminals of each letter and the concentric circles in its stem, as well as the elongated figures, with their detailed features and hair. Dating to about 1300, it was probably painted by the Dominican nuns at the convent of Sankt Katharinenthal on Lake Constance. The cutting once was part of a Gradual that has been preserved since 1866 in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremburg (Hdscr. The letter R is the opening of the Introit, or entrance hymn, "Rorate caeli de super" ("Drop down dew, you heavens, from above"), sung on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, to celebrate the Archangel Gabriel's announcement to the Virgin Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus. His right hand raised and his wings outstretched, he addresses the Virgin Mary, who stands before him and lifts both hands as the dove of the Holy Ghost whispers in her ear. The barefoot angel wears a simple salmon-colored tunic, belted at the waist, and holds a staff. Protected by the arching curve of the blue-and-white letter R, the standing figures of the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary are set against a burnished gold background.
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