Book Review: Tulipa Tulipae - El tulipan ilustrado

Tulipa Tulipae - El tulipa ilustrado (Tulipa, Tulipae - the illustated tulip) is a book about  botanical art relating to tulips.

It's also the catalogue (in Spanish) for an exhibition at the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid which is all about how tulips have been represented by botanical art from the 600 years - by botanical artists past and present.

Fortunately for those of us who don't read Spanish it also has an English translation at the end - which is very welcome for a book which is a jolly good read. I've learned a few things while reading it.

The Cover of Tulipa Tulipae

The Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid has joined forces with the oldest botanical art society in the world, the Society of Botanical Artists to develop a comprehensive exhibition about the botanical art of tulips covering 89 different varieties.

The objective of the exhibition is to show the distinct botanical aspects of the tulip - in terms of its anatomy, taxonomy and classification groups of the genus Tulipa - alongside exhibitions which demonstrate how the tulip has evolved in terms of botanical art over time.

It comprises:

• ​an historical overview of the tulip in various important botanical art publications
• an exhibition of contemporary plant portraits of a wide variety of tulips by members of the Society of Botanical Artists

The exhibition is in the at Villanueave Pavilion in the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid until 20 May. However the tulip paintings will live on in this book for a long time afterwards.

Unusually for a catalogue of an art exhibition, Tulipa Tulipae is both comprehensive and a jolly good read - if you like botanical art history as I do.

I learned about

• why it is called a tulip
• the geographical travels of the tulip bulbs
• who identified the genus Tulipa
• the number of original wild tulips (somewhere between 78 and 150) and the number of hybrids and cultivars today (c.5,000)
• the fact that there are 15 different classification groups within the genus
• the curious stories associated with the bubble known as Tulipomania which gripped the Netherlands during the Dutch Golden Age
• which books have featured tulips in the past
• how the image and portrayal of the tulip has evolved over time

The book has been written by 

• Marta Chirino Argenta, a botanical artist and scientific illustrator for the Royal Botanical Garden-CSIC (Madrid) and other institutions; and
• Esther García Guillén, curator of collections at the Royal Botanical Garden-CSI.

The book covers

• Introductions to the garden, the exhibition and the SBA by the Garden's Director Jesús Muñoz and Sandra Armitage, Director of the Society of Botanical Artists
• examples of drawings, fine art prints and paintings from the archives of the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid 
• images of contemporary botanical portraits of a variety of tulips by members of the Society of Botanical Artists
• Various articles covering the development of the tulip and the associated development of botanical art and illustration associated with the tulip

It also includes:

• short biographies of all the participating artists (in both Spanish and English) - covering their art education and achievements to date
• an index of works
• a bibliography

In terms of the artists whose work is included, first of all I'd like to say it is wonderful to be able to see the entire exhibition from my home in London.

The paintings I particularly liked included:

• some wonderful individual paintings by Janet Pope, Ros Franklin, Billy Showell, Sue J Williams, Marion Perkins and Penny Brown
• an amazing contribution in terms of number of paintings by Susan Christopher-Coulson

I only have one small gripe about the book - and that is the English Translation is at the back and hence the words that go with the images are not next to them. It's OK for the most part. However I personally would have preferred to have what I think of as the Taschen version i.e. two columns of text on each page - for the two languages - and then images opposite.  That's the way it works for the biographies and it would have been a really super book if it had been like that throughout. 

In terms of getting hold of the book ​it's available

• at the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid 
• in the online store
• it's available on Amazon - but not for shipping to the UK

I also understand that the Society of Botanical Artists are trying to make arrangements for it to be available in the UK - although I'm not sure what's happening on this (but I'll update when I find out)

Hopefully in future we can get the various Botanical Gardens collaborating so they can each supply the books by the others! They already have so many existing connections - it would be good if their various publishers and stores could also collaborate! :)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - for anybody who likes tulips and art history. I'm one such so for me it's just perfect!

Longer term, I can only recommend that more botanical art societies do projects like this and become involved in the creation of books which record the output of their members. Exhibitions are wonderful to visit - but you can keep coming back to a favourite book.