Golden Age of Botanical Art

257 Pages·2013·49.66 MB·English

by  Rix, Martyn;

The
Golden Age
of
BOTANICAL
ART
PREVIOUS PAGE: Rosa
pimpinellifolia flore
variegato by Pierre-Joseph
Redouté from Les Roses.
LEFT: Yellow horned
poppy, Chelidonium
pedunculis unifloris …
(now Glaucium flavum) by
Georg Dionysius Ehret.
OPPOSITE: Bombax
pentandrum (now Bombax
ceiba) by General J. Eyre.
Author’s Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the staff of the Library, Art and Archives at
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for their help with the illustrations; Gina
Fullerlove, Head of Kew Publishing for her advice; and Alison Rix for her
help with research and assistance throughout the project.
Martyn Rix is a botanist and editor of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. He is the
author or coauthor of many books, including The Botanical Garden.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
Text © Martyn Rix 2012
Design © Andre Deutsch Books Limited 2012
All images unless otherwise stated in the Picture Credits on page 256 © The
Board and Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The right of Martyn Rix to be identifed as the author of work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Published 2013.
Printed in China
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-11984-7 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rix, Martyn, author.
The golden age of botanical art / Martyn Rix.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-226-09359-8 (cloth : alkaline paper) 1. Botanical illustration.
2. Botanical artists. 3. Flowers in art. I. Title.
QK98.15.R59 2013
580--dc23
2013012419
∞ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
IN ASSOCIATION wITH
The
Golden Age
of
BOTANICAL
ART
The UniveRsiTy of ChiCAgo PRess
MARTYN RIX Chicago and London

C
ONTENTS
Introduction ...............................................................................................8
1 The Origins of Botanical Art ..............................................................10
Leonardo da Vinci ..............................................................................20
2 Early works of the Sixteenth Century ................................................22
Jacopo Ligozzi ..................................................................................32
3 Seventeenth-Century Florilegia ..........................................................34
Dutch Flower Paintings ......................................................................46
4 North American Plants .......................................................................48
Linnaeus and Plant Classification ......................................................60
5 Travelers to the Levant ......................................................................62
Maria Sybilla Merian ..........................................................................74
6 The Exploration of Russia and Japan .................................................76
Les Vélins du Muséum .......................................................................86
7 Botany Bay and Beyond .....................................................................88
Sir Joseph Banks ................................................................................98
8 The Golden Age in England .............................................................100
Mrs Delany and her Paper Mosaicks .................................................112
9 South American Adventures .............................................................114
Thornton’s The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature ......................126
10 The Golden Age in France ................................................................128
Empress Joséphine ...........................................................................144
11 Botanical and Horticultural Illustrated Journals ...............................146
Henry C. Andrews ............................................................................156
12 Early Chinese Plant Drawings ..........................................................158
Père David and the French Missionaries ...........................................168
13 The Company School in India ..........................................................170
The Story of Flora Danica 1761–1883 .............................................186
14 A New Era at Kew ...........................................................................188
George Maw .....................................................................................204
15 Victorian Travelers ...........................................................................206
Elwes and the Genus Lilium ............................................................216
16 Bringing China to Europe.................................................................218
Modern Florilegia .............................................................................228
17 The Flowers of war and Beyond .......................................................230
Exhibiting Botanical watercolors .....................................................240
18 Carrying on the Tradition .................................................................242
OPPOSITE: Heliconia Index ......................................................................................................250
'uaupensis,' an FOLLOWING PAGES:
Bibliography ...........................................................................................255
unamed species, by Victoria amazonica from
Margaret Mee. Publishers’ Credits ..................................................................................256 Lindley’s Victoria Regia.
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I
NTRODUCTION
Botanical illustration reached its first peak of sophistication and paintings made by Indian artists. Hand-colored lithography
achievement in the hundred or so years from 1750 to around continued to be used for books until the advent of color printing at
1850. This was a period of great discoveries in biology and other the end of the nineteenth century.
sciences, of advances in printing techniques, and of increasing what is the difference between botanical art and botanical
wealth in Europe, so that beautiful books could be produced and illustration? In art, the finished painting is the whole object of the
find sponsors and buyers. Artistic paintings of flowers had been artist, and it has no further purpose than to be admired. A botanical
made from the late seventeenth century, but without publication illustration has a scientific purpose, to illustrate a book or act as
they remained the private property of royal collections in France, a record of a plant species or plant part. The illustration should
England, Germany, Russia, or Austria, or of a few, usually noble, have a generality that ignores the imperfections of the individual
patrons and collectors, such as the Earl of Derby and the Duchess specimen, and so can represent a species or particular form of a
of Portland in England. species. This assumes some botanical knowledge on the part of the
with improvements in printing, initially in engraving and later in artist, in selecting as typical a specimen as possible and knowing
lithography, beautiful illustrated botanical books were produced. which imperfections to ignore. In the best botanical illustration the
Botanical art, discovery, and science were combined in Sibthorp’s artistic aspect is not lessened by the scientific purpose. This book
Flora Graeca, published in parts between 1806 and 1840, traces the development of botanical art and illustration from the
and containing nearly a thousand hand-colored, copper-plate earliest times until the present day, particularly through the book
engravings of plants collected by the author in Greece and Turkey; collections in the library and the art collection of the Royal Botanic
financed by Sibthorp’s estate, it is still one of the most expensive Gardens, Kew.
botanical books ever printed, and still one of the most beautiful. will there be a second golden age of botanical illustration,
In France, the artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté, financed by and is that age with us now? we are continuing to explore and
Napolèon’s wife, the Empress Joséphine, produced illustrated discover plants around the world, and the destruction of so many
books about her collection of garden plants, especially lilies and vulnerable habitats, particularly in the tropics, has given a new
roses; these were printed by a novel method, stipple engraving, in sense of urgency to this work. Though we have fewer botanists,
which thousands of small specks were engraved onto the plate, and we have more botanical artists than ever before, and they have
then filled with ink of different colors before being put through the ever-increasing opportunities to show their work in international
press. This produced a soft, translucent effect and required less exhibitions and sell their work through the Internet. Through
hand-coloring than did line engraving. Les Liliacées was published the illustrations in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, our present-day
between 1802 and 1816 and Les Roses between 1817 and 1824. paintings can be compared directly with those of artists from the
Redouté continued to use this method until 1833. late eighteenth century, and can be seen to be their equals. Printing
Meanwhile, in England, w. H. Fitch had mastered the art of plant of delicate watercolor paintings is still imperfect, but reproduction
illustration by lithography, which produces a very delicate outline by electronic means is fast becoming so accurate and cheap that
and shading as a basis for hand-coloring with watercolor. Fitch perhaps the time will come soon when large, illustrated botanical
worked for william Hooker and his son Joseph, at a time when books will be published again, on demand, yet now at a price that
they were developing and expanding the collections and herbarium the ordinary, enthusiastic plant-lover can afford.
at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He drew with great fluidity
and confidence, but at the same time with total botanical accuracy, Martyn Rix
and he was adept at lithographing and improving the paintings
OPPOSITE: Camellia
of others. One of his finest works is Illustrations of Himalayan
reticulata from The
Plants (1855) with text by Joseph Hooker, in which he reproduced Botanist.
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