Beauty of Nature- An Evolutionary Truth

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'Beauty of Nature: An Evolutionary Truth' is a comprehensive anthology drawing series about charismatic appearance of various species along with crisp and relevant literature explaining their evolutionary significance. A total of 25 species from diverse ecosystems and various taxa are included in this book and spread over into three chapters, i.e., Dress to Impress, Mistaken Identity and Fear factor according to their pattern of adaptation.

Nature inspires arts since the cave age. In the age of European renaissance, nature dominated the world of paintings. Photography still being in the womb of future, documenting the diversity of animals and plants encountered in different corners of the world had only been possible with brushes and colours. An artistic mind always try to transcend beyond the boundary of narrow utilitarianism. Thus, often those paintings of plants, insects, birds and other animals are pure objects of beauty. From the seventeenth century pioneering Maria Sibelly Merian to the Joy Adamson of 20th Century, there are many stand out examples of painters who passionately depicted the beauty of nature expressed in animals and plants. Most of them studied their living subjects meticulously to bring out best of their characters in their paintings. From India, though not many examples of such efforts of realistic nature painting are known, one remarkable example is the famous Mansur in Emperor Jahangir's court, whose paintings of animals, birds and royal huntings still shines in quality of arts.

Dr. Arijit Chatterjee has presented in this booklet his passion of studying animals and depicting them pictorially on papers by brushes and water colours. When love for nature often suffers from the epidemic of aesthetic and ethic less digital photography, Arijit's paintings of living objects of nature being enriched with short but crispy texts brings fresh airs.

Hope, Arijit would continue to entertain us with many more of his artistic exposition of nature in future. Best wishes for that.

The beauty of colours and patterns in nature have always intrigued hominids. Interestingly this beauty of natural world is not created by any supernatural entities but have evolved over million years through evolution of life. In the last thirty years, human society became aware and concerned about these natural phenomena but very few resources are available to understand this elegance of nature in evolutionary perspective.

Being a student of ecology and evolution and also as an artist, I always desired to amalgamate these two genres. Recently, while working on another project I started to wonder how the different colourful and vibrant species in nature and their evolutionary significance can be discussed exclusively through blending of art and science. Thus, I pitched an idea to Pardicolor, a wing of Wildlife Asia who empower artists throughout world who spreads awareness about nature conservation using art as medium; they willingly agreed to support my vision. Therefore, it materialized into this book - 'Beauty of Nature: An Evolutionary Truth'.

The book contains a comprehensive anthology about charismatic appearance of different natural elements (colouration of species, their shapes and extension and modifications of body parts etc.) through detailed water colour painting along with crisp and relevant literature explaining their evolutionary significance. Depending on my field experience and thorough study of books and articles, a total of 25 species from diverse ecosystems and various taxonomic groups were finalized for this book and spread over into three chapters according to their pattern of adaptation.