Friday, August 31, 2012

Botanical Art From the 1700s and Onward, a Few Examples

          
1) Georg Dionysus Ehret

Illustrations of Ehret, on the left, and the engraver Johann Jakob Haid, on the right, from Plantae Selectae by Christoph Jacob Trew (1750).
I took this photo at the NYBG. 

 Georg Ehret is most well known for his beautiful work as a botanical artist in the 18th Century. He traveled extensively throughout Europe over his lifetime, illustrating for a variety of clients. In Holland, he met Carl Linnaeus and George Clifford (a wealthy banker with a garden full of rare plants), and was hired to illustrate their work, Hortus Cliffortianus. Ehret was widely influential during his lifetime and is today considered to be one of the greatest botanical artists of all time, with a style that is bold, colorful, well-designed, and yet still detailed and accurate. 
Banana tree illustration by Ehret (1750) in Plantae Selectae.
I took this photo at the NYBG.

Flower of the banana tree, illustration by Ehret in Plantae Selectae. Look at those bold colors!
I took this photo at the NYBG.

 2) Sydney Parkinson

 In 1768, botanist Joseph Banks, naturalist Daniel Solander, and botanical artist Sydney Parkinson traveled with Captain James Cook on his first voyage to the Pacific. Parkinson had been hired to draw all of the plant and animal specimens that Banks and Solander collected. Unfortunately, he died on the way to Cape Town, South Africa, but his art survived the journey. Over five hundred of Parkinson's illustrations were engraved on copper plates between 1771 and 1784, but they weren't printed until the 20th Century. Under very challenging, rushed, and dangerous conditions, Parkinson managed to produce an impressive number of plant illustrations that were not only scientifically valuable, but very beautiful as well. 

Plate from Banks' Florilegium.
I took this photo in the library of the NYBG.
3) Pierre-Joseph Redouté

   An illustration from Redouté's Les Liliacées. Such vibrant colors and delicate shading!
I took this photograph at the NYBG.

Pierre-Joseph Redouté was a Belgian botanical artist. He is widely regarded as one of the most popular and celebrated botanical artists in all of history. Redouté was very successful during his life, frequently doing work for royalty such as Marie Antoinette, or giving them painting lessons. One of his major works, published from 1802 to 1816, was an eight volume collection of his botanical art called Les Liliacées. 

Detail from the above illustration by Redouté. Even in his pencil drawings, his lines are clear and deliberate, while also creating an image that is lifelike and beautiful.                                          
I took this photograph at the NYBG.        

4) Alois Auer

A nature print by Alois Auer from Pflanzen: Blümen und Blätter (1853).
I took this image at the NYBG library.

In the 1850s, Alois Auer invented a new way to document botanical material with his method called "nature printing." In this method, a specimen was pressed directly into a plate of soft lead and the resulting stamped lead was painted with ink so that the image could be reproduced. The result is usually better for thin plants, and less suited for fleshy plants, but done correctly can yield a very detailed image of a plant, especially its venation patterns. This unusual type of botanical art, though beautiful and very accurate, did not become widely adopted, and interest in it declined during the late 19th Century. 
Sources

 Blunt, Wilfrid and William T. Stearn. "Appendix A: Botanical drawing. Eight articles by Walter Hood Fitch, reprinted from 'The Gardeners' Chronicle', 1869." In The Art of Botanical Illustration. London, the Antique Collectors' Club Ltd.

The New York Botanical Garden: Plants and Gardens Portrayed. http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/Onlinexhibits/exhbtcata.html
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