Find out about the roots of botanical art in Asia - in China, India, Japan, Korea and Thailand
This page covers the development of botanical art in Asia between 600 and 1900 AD.

Below I have developed (and am developing) sections relating to the countries which have the strongest traditions of painting plants and flowers
  • China
  • India
  • Japan
  • Korea
  • Thailand
This will take a while so I've decided to start publishing while it is in progress.
...the Chinese or Japanese artist approaches the painting of flowers with a humility that is rarely encountered in the West

​Wilfrid Blunt (The Art of Botanical Illustration' - West and East)
Two recurrent names are already emerging. 'The East India Company' and 'Sir Joseph Banks' are associated with a lot of the discoveries of plants and the development of botanical illustration in the 19th century.

​The image in the banner is a crop of the Plate of Cephalotaxus harringtonii from the Flora Japonica

CHINA
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...flower painting as in independent art, untainted by medical or other practical considerations, began in China as early as the seventh or eighth century AD and was carried on with enthusiasm through these centuries when, in the West, Nature was still an object of mistrust or even fear
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Wilfrid Blunt (The Art of Botanical Illustration' - West and East)

Chinese flower painting
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Flower painting (huahui) in China
  • started in China in 4,000 BC
  • initially it was associated with Buddhist art
  • became very popular in the 10th century
  • became established as a proper art form during the Tang dynasty (618-907) - which is is regarded as a highpoint of Chinese culture. 

Bird and flower painting also became recognised as an independent and specific genre of Chinese art. It was associated with the philosophy of Taoism which emphasises harmony with nature. Xu Xi (Hsü Hsi) is considered to be the founder of flower and bird painting. The genre was also introduced to Japan

There are two approaches to painting flower and bird paintings:
  • the method adopted by Huang Quan emphasised an precise outline (gongbi) using a brush and ink which was then filled with bright colours 
  • Xu Xi (Hsü Hsi) favoured brushwork and thin washes of colour
Artists not only directly portrayed the outer beauty of flowers, they also expressed the subtle spirit and demeanor of their subject. 
Flower painting - China Online Museum
The Four Gentlemen or Four Noble Plants - also known as the Flowers of the Four Seasons are the  the plum blossom, the orchid, the bamboo, and the chrysanthemum.

Chinese painting techniques
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"To be without method is deplorable, but to depend entirely on method is worse."
(Lu Ch'ai (Wang Kai) 17th century Master of Chinese brush painting
Four basic painting techniques are:
  1. outlines (bones) filled with colors (雙鉤填彩) - The outline is regarded as the "bones" of a painting. Traditional Chinese realistic painting demonstrates meticulous attention to detail of the outline, fine line brushwork and use of colour in a symbolic way
  2. “boneless” washes (沒骨) - painting with outlines or previous sketches.
  3. “baimiao (白描)” ink lines - this technique involves an emphasis on painting outlines using fine lines of ink and a few light tonal washes of ink to indicate form. This technique never uses colour. Also called the "white lines" technique.
  4. “sketching ideas (寫意)” - the sketch painting technique uses freehand brushwork
How paintings of flowers and plants were constructed was also influenced by the earliest record of Chinese art Theory - the six principles of chinese painting. This relates to the Gu Huapin Lu (“Classified Record of Painters of Former Times”) by Xie He (a.k.a. Hsieh Ho) published in the 6th century.

In this he rates 27 painters in three classes of descending merit, each with three subdivisions. He explains the criteria for the rating and ranking as the six principles.
  1. "Spirit Resonance," or vitality, and seems to translate to the nervous energy transmitted from the artist into the work. The overall energy of a work of art. Xie He said that without Spirit Resonance, there was no need to look further.
  2. "Bone Method," or the way of using the brush. This refers not only to texture and brush stroke, but to the close link between handwriting and personality. In his day, the art of calligraphy was inseparable from painting.
  3. "Correspondence to the Object," or the depicting of form, which would include shape and line.
  4. "Suitability to Type," or the application of color, including layers, value and tone.
  5. "Division and Planning," or placing and arrangement, corresponding to composition, space and depth.
  6. "Transmission by Copying," or the copying of models, not only from life but also the works of antiquity.
  7. Six principles of Chinese painting

Chinese painters of plants and flowers
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One of the problems with identifying artists is the different names attributed to them over time. Developing a list of important flower painters will take time!
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907–960 AD)
  • Xu Xi (Hsü Hsi) d. 975 - ​The most famous of all Chinese painters of flowers, fruit and birds according to Blunt. He lived during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. He was famous for his "drawing from life" and his use of color.  
  • Huáng Quán (Huang Chüan) (903-965) was an Imperial Painter who was renowned for his paintings of was renowned for his paintings of flowers and birds, plants and insects.
Butterfly and Chinese wisteria flowers by Xu Xi (HsÌ Hsi)
Butterfly and Chinese wisteria flowers by Xu Xi (HsÌ Hsi) c.970
Sung Dynasty (960-1279)
  • Chao Ch'ang lived in Szechuan and was famous for his paintings of flowering plants and cut branches, vegetables and fruits.  He painted from observation and often refused to sell his paintings. Interestingly very few of his paintings have survived as a result.
  • Wang Tingkuo was from K'aifeng in Honan Province. He specialized in painting flowers and birds. His paintings are in light colors and possess an unusual degree of refinement.
  • Zhao Mengjiang (1199-1267) He attained high rank as a Mandarin at court during the Song Dynasty. He was a master painter of ink plums, orchids, pines, bamboos and narcissi but painted them in ink and did not use colour to make them come alive. (see Narcissus - on the Met Museum Heilbronn Timeline of History  Three Friends of Winter) 
Early Qing dynasty (1644-1912)
  • Chen Su (1660–1736) - born into an elite family, she rejected conventional female roles and pursued arts and classics. She referenced the Wu School of Suzhou, who were active in the Ming dynasty. They influenced her flower and landscape paintings. ​
Picture
Pine Tree and Chrysanthemums, by Chen Shu
Picture
Three friends of Winter (pine, plum blossom and bamboo) by Zhao Mengjian 趙孟堅 (Song dynasty) ink on paper. These three plants are known for known for their ability to withstand coldness
The Reeves Collection of Chinese Botanical Drawings | The Plantsman
This large collection is bound into eight albums which are held at the RHS Lindley Library. John Reeves (1774–1856) was appointed as a tea inspector in 1808 and started to travel to China. He met with and was appointed by Sir Joseph Banks to be one of his many collectors.  he was also He was also a keen amateur naturalist and artist and also collected drawings! The link provides a detailed explanation of how the collection came about.
The commissioned paintings were executed on thick, cream English watercolour paper, predominantly produced by Whatman and made from cotton rag, measuring at least 48 x 36cm. 
The Plantsman
Chinese Art and the Reeves Collection: Images of Nature 
by Judith Magee 

The Natural History Museum has developed a book to show off prime images from the Reeves Collection of paints of the flora and fauna of China. These were sent back from China to the UK in the early 1800s and now form part of the Reeves Collection at the Natural History Museum in London
Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: The Natural History Museum
Published First Edition: 1 Mar. 2011
REFERENCE

INDIA
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Plants have always been important to the practice of Ayurvedic medicine which is one of the world’s oldest medicinal systems. However, unlike in the west, the practice of medicine does not seem to have triggered the development of botanical illustration to ensure plants are identified correctly.
Mughal Emperors and botanical illustration

There was no true botanical illustration until the time of the Mughal Emperors who were genuine nature lovers. Mughal emperors commissioned botanical and ornithological studies from their court artists One of the most notable was Jahangir (1569-1627) who was interested in painting serving his other interest in the scientific basis of nature.
  • Ustad Mansur (active 1590-1624) was a seventeenth-century Mughal painter and court artist during the reign of Jahangir. He painted flowers - however animals and birds appear to have been his speciality and flowers and plants were often relegated to a supporting role.
His detailed careful depictions of plants and animals avoided all personal expression and are extremely valuable for their scientific accuracy as well as their artistic perfection. ​
Picture
Painting of a flower by Mansur, Mughal court painter (early 1600s)
Picture
Illustration by Ustad Mansur
Colonial India and the East India Company

Recording plants in paintings seems to have been reinforced by Europeans resident in India who either wanted records of their time living in India or wanted practical records because of their job. So, for example, a number of physicians working for the East India Company were interested in botany and plants and wanted paintings of what they found. 
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Company School Paintings (18th and 19th centuries)
Many Indian artists worked for patrons in the East India Company. The term used for this body of artists is the Company style.  Many had been trained in schools set up in major cities by the British to train Indian artists in Western Techniques. Company School artists typically worked  in watercolour on paper and recorded whatever interested their patrons. The style in fact varied by the different centres/cities. They recorded all aspects of the land and culture. Some artists specialised in producing large paintings of the plants and flowers of India. 

Very few Company paintings of plants seem to have been digitised. However a number are regularly included in botanical art exhibitions at Kew.
Picture
Hibiscus, study of a flower. Company school painting. Watercolor and drawing on paper. 19th cent.(Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Indian Botanical Drawings 1793-1868
​from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 
by Henry J. Noltie 
Paperback: 100 pages
Publisher: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh;
First Edition published: 31 May 1999

Company Painters
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Often we do not know the names of the artists. Collections of paintings by Company School artists are often known by the name of the collector. However certain patrons employed the same artists and we know their names.
Bhawani Das
One of three artists employed by Mary Impey - wife of Elijah Impey, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Fort William - who commissioned over three hundred paintings.

Rungiah and Govindoo (mid 19th century)
These two Indian artists were commissioned to make several thousand botanical drawings by Robert Wight (1796-1872) a surgeon with the East India Company. Some 700 of these can be found in the collections of the Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh (RGBE)

Collections of Indian Botanical Art

The Cleghorn Collection (RBGE)
Several thousand botanical drawings were commissioned in India, from Indian artists, by Hugh Cleghorn (1820-1895).
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The Roxburgh Icones (RBGE)
William Roxburgh (1751-1815) was known as the ‘Father of Indian Botany’. In India he commissioned about 2500 drawings of Indian plants from a team of Indian artists. These are known as the ‘Roxburgh Icones’. RGBE have a a set of about 500 extremely fine, partially coloured, ink copies based on the original Roxburgh Icones, made in the Calcutta Botanic Garden 1815-20

Exhibitions of Indian Botanical Art

The Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh has held a series of major exhibitions of botanical drawings and paintings of Company School paintings and drawings in the RBGE gallery at Inverleith House:
MUSEUM REFERENCES:
REFERENCES - ARTICLES:​

ARTWORK ONLINE
​Dapuri Drawings: Alexander Gibson & the Bombay Botanic Gardens
by Henry J. Noltie 

A book about the watercolour paintings of plants grown in the botanic gardens in Bombay in the middle of the 19th century. These were commissioned by Alexander Gibson, an East India Company surgeon. Gibson wrote the Bombay Flora with Nicholas Dalzell.

An unknown Portugese-Indian artist created the watercolour paintings which were made between 1847 and 1850. The plants are not all native to Bombay and western India. Half are exotics from as far afield as Argentina and Australia.

The book includes information about Gibson's life and work (including his role as a pioneering forest conservator) and a history of Dapuri and Gibson's other botanic gardens. 
Hardback, 240pp, 340 x 240mm, full colour illustrations throughout
Robert Wight and the Botanical Drawings of Rungiah and Govindoo
by Henry J. Noltie 

​This trilogy of volumes in a slipcase forms the second in a series of illustrated works devoted to collections of botanical drawings made by Indian artists for Scottish surgeon-botanists, held in the library of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

​In the central volume are reproduced some 200 of the drawings commissioned between 1826 and 1853 by Robert Wight (1796–1872) from the artists Rungiah and Govindoo. 
Paperback (cased), 511pp, 296 x 234mm, full colour illustrations throughout

Available from Royal Botanical Garden Publications

JAPAN
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Traditional Japanese botanical paintings of flowers and plants takes a number of forms. 
  • brush drawings in ink is a traditional media for drawings and paintings
  • scroll paintings used images of plants and flowers
  • woodblock printmaking techniques were used for making very many prints of images including plants and flowers
  • screens painted with images of plants and flowers
However the development of paintings of plants and flowers were made for aesthetic reasons and to give pleasure to others rather than for the scientific reasons normally associated with botanical art.

Japanese painting began to be influenced by western art in the latter part of the 19th century.

​Below I'm developing a list of people who are important to the story of the development of Japanese Botanical Art.

Physicians and explorers
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The Japanese Flora was first described - in part - by:
Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866)  
He is renowned for introducing western medicine to Japan and for bringing Japanese plants to the west - along with scientific records which include botanical drawings.

Siebold was a German physician who joined the Dutch East Indian Army as medical officer. He worked as a doctor in Japan between 1823–1829 and uniquely was not constrained as to his movements. He was interested in plants and the extent to which the Linnean system covered the plants he found in Japan. His achievements include:
  • introducing a number of living Japanese species to Europe including Akebia quinata, Lilium speciosum, Paeonia, and Wisteria. The Botanic Garden of Leiden, still features 15 of the original plants
  • developing a collection of c. 12,000 dried plant specimens of 2,000 species - with the help of his assistant H. Bürger (1804–1858).
  • developing a collection of fine botanical drawings with the help of one of his students, Kō Ryōsai, painter Kawahara Keiga and a physician from Nagoya, Itō Keisuke,
  • assembling a large collection of books and other matter relating to Japan.
On his return he met the German botanist Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini and together they developed a plan to create and publish a Flora Japonica.  Zuccarini was respondible all the Latin names. Siebold provided the Japanese and Chinese names, a description of where they grew, their use, cultivation and history in French. 

Most of his collections can be found in SieboldHuis the museum dedicated to him in Leiden where he lived after his return. 
  • Siebold's Botanical Illustrations - mastering the fine art of science - about an exhibition in Japan relating to the development of Siebold's collections and the botanical drawings
Picture
Eriobotyra Japonica
Picture
Camellia Japonica from the Flora Japonica

Japanese flower painters
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Tawaraya Sōtatsu (16th/17th century)
Characterised by the Smithsonian as "one of the most influential yet elusive figures in the history of Japanese visual culture". Active in Kyōto from approximately 1600 to the 1630s. Works attributed to him or his studio in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kitagawa Sōsetsu (active 1639–50)
Poppies - Hanging scroll; color and gold on paper

Kawahara Keiga 1786 - 1860
c. 1811 he was appointed as a painter for the Dejima Factory. This was on the island where all non-Japanese where segregated so they did not pollute Japanese culture. He painted things Japanese in response to requests from Blomhoff (director of the Dutch East India Company Dejima Factory), Fisscher (a Dutch East Indian Company employee), and Siebold (a physician at the Dutch East India Company Dejima Factory). 
 In a way he was a 'Company Painter'. You can see his botanical art in a post on this site
Picture
Hibiscus (17th century) by Tawaraya Sōtatsu in the Brooklyn Museum
Exhibitions
  • Hunt Institute: Talking in Flowers: Japanese Botanical Art 5 April – 16 July 1982 - Included examples of brush painting and woodblock printing. A catalogue accompanied the exhibition.

KOREA
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In development

THAILAND
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In development

A page in progress
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This page is a work in progress. I welcome any suggestions as to the artists who could be included above who lived before 1900.  Please also include URLs to information about the artist.
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    Do you have any suggestions?

More Famous Botanical Artists of the Past