How Edward Lear's artistic genius led to the Owl and the Pussycat

A new book containing unseen works shows the nonsense poet’s prowess as a natural history painter

He is best known for sending an owl and a pussycat off to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat. But before he ever took up a pen to write poetry, Edward Lear was an extremely well regarded natural history painter, whose lifelike portraits of birds and mammals were among the most sought-after scientific illustrations of his day.

Now, a new book is seeking to reignite interest in Lear’s “important” work as a talented natural historian, with never-before-published illustrations that shed light on the relationship between the Victorian author’s art and his literature.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/39wtNLO