Details from a painting by Otto Marseus van Schrieck, c. 1670On display at the Herbert F. Johnson Mu

Details from a painting by Otto Marseus van Schrieck, c. 1670

On display at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

Otto Marseus van Schrieck invented the sottobosco or ‘forest floor’ genre of painting, which reflected the 17th century Dutch scientific culture with its emphasis on the documentation of the natural world, and encouraged the viewer to look down and consider the domain of plants and mushrooms, insects, slugs, snails, small reptiles, and amphibians.