Francis Hallé
The beauty of life
Francis Hallé
We see the beauty of living things every day. Yet few naturalists dare to talk about it. Suspicions of subjectivity, accusations of sentimentalism: questions of aesthetics have long been considered obstacles to scientific reasoning.
Francis Hallé gracefully proves the contrary, in an investigation in the form of a stroll through the lineages of evolution, delicately drawn by his hand. Can we find objective criteria for the beauty or ugliness of a species? How useful can beauty be for a living organism? Does the notion of beauty make sense in plants? Does evolution lead to greater beauty? In the course of the illustrations, we discover that the function of beauty could be much broader than the meagre role of seduction that evolutionary theory had assigned it.
For our eyes, too accustomed to what they see, weary of the spectacle of everyday brutality, this book is a kind of antidote. It reconnects us with a simple sense of wonder, where we would never have hoped to find it: in the depths of the sea, in the ingenious folds of a seed, in the geometric correspondences of a coat...
An adventurous and bushy book, The Beauty of Living Things demonstrates that any understanding of the world begins with love and attentive observation of its forms, even the simplest ones.
[Actes Sud] Nature, Hors collection, October 2024
22 x 32 cm
160 pages
Atlas of poetic botany
Francis Hallé
With the collaboration of : Éliane Patriarca
Illustrations: Francis Hallé
Botanist and explorer of the equatorial rainforests he has criss-crossed for forty years, sketchbook in hand, Francis Hallé invites us in this Atlas of poetic botany on an illustrated journey to meet extraordinary plants.
From the countless expedition notebooks that line the shelves of his Montpellier office, he has extracted a sample of the most astonishing specimens. From Codariocalyx motorius, the dancing plant, to Argentina's Solanaceae, underground trees with only a carpet of leaves on the ground, their modes of development and adaptation often go beyond our understanding to enchant our imagination.
Exuberant, enigmatic, endowed with surprising aptitudes, the plant wonders presented in this unexpected cabinet of curiosities plead in favor of safeguarding tropical forests, which are today seriously threatened.
Arthaud, October 2016
19.5 x 1.3 x 26.7 cm
128 pages
A plea for the tree
Francis Hallé
From the shade of our gardens to the blaze of our hearths, from aspirin to airplane tires, from the wood of our beds to the paper of this book, there are few areas of our lives where trees don't have their place, with their characteristic discretion.
And if they are our partners in the often hazardous business of living on Earth, isn't it also because we share with them a number of imperative interests: light and water, soil fertility, space and warmth?
What is this daily companion? How can we define this extraordinarily ancient form of life, with an architectural model as singular as it is rigorous, and capable of great feats? Francis Hallé avoids any anthropomorphism and lays the foundations for a structural and functional analysis of this multifaceted plant.
Trees. Through lively and meticulous portraits - of Durian, Eucalyptus and Hevea, for example - the author recounts the intense dialogue between certain species and man, revealing the profound and still mysterious "otherness" of trees, so different from man, having contributed so much and received so little in return. A plea for the tree and its otherness, but also a plea for man.
[Actes Sud], November 2024
21.00 x 24.00 cm
256 pages