Words or Pictures

The hackneyed saying that one picture is worth a thousand words was, it turns out, the brainchild of an American advertising executive, Frederick R. Barnard. (Hoping to get more respect for his slogan, which he thought up in 1921, Barnard put out the word that it was a Chinese proverb.)

Some of the editors at Natural History are awfully fond of words and reluctant to admit that any amount of text can easily be trumped by a picture. But when it came to planning "Biomechanics," a column that made its debut in the magazine's July-August 1999 issue, we editors became real Barnardites: we started worrying about pictures right away. Reporting on biophysical discoveries--how toads unfurl their tongues to catch insects, how baby skates pump water over and through their egg cases, why blades of grass spring back after being blown down, how geckos climb walls, how flies fly--was, we reasoned, a challenge no wordsmith should face alone. We needed an illustrator, and no ordinary one. Enter Sally Bensusen.

An artist who had a brief career as an astronomer, Bensusen is blessed not only with visual imagination but with a passion for attacking diverse and difficult subjects. Undertaking the illustration of "Biomechanics" in every issue means reading and mastering scientific papers on a variety of subjects. It means working in close concert not only with the writer (Carl Zimmer), the editor (Rebecca Finnell), and the designer (Tom Page) but also with the scientists who have made the biomechanical discoveries in question. The outcome of all this collaboration invariably turns out to be a striking image. Proof of Bensusen's success? The magazine staff is happy, readers write to tell us how much they enjoy her illustrations--and the scientists often ask to buy her paintings.

Thanks, Sally.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Natural History Magazine, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning