NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

The Transylvania Florilegium Exhibition #1

7/4/2018

Get your diary out! This is a very short post to say that the dates for viewing the botanical paintings in Volume 1 of the Transylvania Florilegium have now been identified.

The exhibition details are as follows:

Venue: Romanian Cultural Institute (UK), 1 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PH (nearest tube is Hyde Park Corner)
Dates: 21st May - 12th June 2018
Publishers: Published for The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation by Addison Publications Ltd London
More details: Addisons Publishers page and the Highgrove website
Facebook: The Romanian Cultural Institute Facebook Page will doubtless also have announcements in due course - but I know some of you need to book further ahead re. trips to London!

The watercolours for Volume I have been printed and the first bound volumes will be ready in May. The last paintings for Volume II have been completed and will be printed later this year.

I'll be writing more blog posts about it - including which artists are involved and the process adopted to compile the Transylvania Florilegium - when more details are available.

At present, most of what I know from the botanical art perspective is on the Florilegium Page of my website - which goes from Historical to Contemporary.

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What's the difference between botanical art and flower painting?

31/1/2018

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Those new to botanical art are often unfamiliar with the differences between botanical illustration, botanical art and flower painting.

This post provides:

a brief introduction to an explanation of the differences and where you can find more information on this topic
how the differences between botanical illustration and botanical art developed over time

What's the difference between botanical art, botanical illustration and flower painting?

On my website I have a page called What is Botanical Art?

At the top of the page there is a summary of the differences between:

botanical illustration - where the emphasis is on the identification of species and support for the scientific perspective and publication - hence an emphasis on monochrome illustrations
botanical art - which has aesthetic appeal and is always botanically accurate in terms of scale, form, structure and colour and might include the portrayal of habitat. However it is not always as complete as a scientific botanical illustration.
flower painting - which is much more about the creation of an aesthetically pleasing painting and is much less about botanical accuracy and plant identification.

Further down the page, I expand on

The Science of Botanical Illustration
The Artistry of Botanical Art

which cites definitions used for botanical illustration and botanical art - including those used by the RHS, ASBA and BAC. I also include links to other parts of the website which provide further information to support those who want to learn more about, for example, scientific botanical illustration.

How do you describe the differences between botanical art and illustration?

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What's the History of Botanical Art?

What is Botanical Art? also provides an introduction to the history of the development of botanical art and illustration and why these differences exist. It provides:

an overview of the history of the development of botanical art
highlighting the role of Herbals; the Age of Discovery - and the work done by botanical artists on voyages of exploration and discovery over the years; the role of Gardens and the Florilegium and finally the development of Contemporary Botanical Art in the twentieth century.
summarising the role played by key individuals as patrons or painters in developing both the science and artistry of botanical art and illustration. Most of these individuals have a dedicated page on this website where you can find out more about their contribution. (just tap the link in their names to view their page).

P. sukhakulii, C. lindeniana [Paphiopedilum and Cypripedium] (Watercolour on paper, 1989) © Estate of Pandora Sellars. Courtesy of RHS Library Collections

One of the important artists who contributed to the development of contemporary botanical art is Pandora Sellars - who worked as a botanical illustrator for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and designed her complex compositions as a trained artist.

She excelled at developing new ways to design botanical paintings to help understand the colour and form of plants in terms of both their flowers and leaves - and has influenced many botanical artists as a result.

I'm very pleased to announce that the Estate of Pandora Sellars and the RHS have given me permission to use an image of the orchid painting which is now part of the RHS Lindley Library Collection on this website. You can see it above. I'm guessing it will be the first view of this work for many people. To my mind, it's a perfect example of how it is possible to combine botanical illustration and botanical art!

Enjoy!

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Awards - Society of Botanical Artists' Annual Exhibition 2017

13/10/2017

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This post is the first of three about the annual exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists:

today's post is about the botanical artists receiving awards at "Changing Seasons" the 2017 Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists. It includes images of the artwork receiving awards and more information about the artists (links to their websites are embedded in their names).
tomorrow's post is about those awarded a Certificate of Botanical Merit
finally, Sunday's post will be a review of the exhibition as a whole and a commentary on its development over the last decade that I have been writing reviews of this exhibition.

The show is on at the Central Hall Westminster in London (opposite Westminster Abbey) until 21 October. The exhibition opens to the public TODAY and is then open every day from 11am to 5pm. Admission is free.

Society Awards

The Joyce Cuming Presentation Award

This is probably one of the most prized awards and is a sterling silver Almoner’s plate which is a legacy from Joyce Cuming. The winner also receives a certificate.

Winner of The Joyce Cuming Presentation Award - "Allium christophii" (£500) by Bridgette James watercolour

This year the prize is awarded to Bridgette James SBA SGL for her Allium christophii which is very impressive. She has been a professional artist since 1987 and a member of The Society of Botanical Artists for more than 20 years. In February this year she exhibited her suite of Allium paintings at the RHS and was awarded a Silver Gilt Medal.
Judges also produce a list of people who were Highly Commended during the selection process.

Those identified as highly commended for this award in 2017 are:

Shevaun Doherty SBA for "Prunus domestica 'Victoria' "
Sandra Doyle for "The 4,000 year old Cypress of Abaruh, Sarv-e Abarkuh, Cupressus sempervirens var. horizontalis"
Penny Gould SBA for "Euphorbia amygaloides 'Purpurea' "
Christiana Hale Webb for "Turning Leaves" (Her painting ‘Winter Oak Leaves’ is held in the RHS Lindley Library art collections.)
Yumi Henderson "Fuschia 'Irene Stinton' "
Svetlana Lanse "Capiscum annuum"
Roger Reynolds GM SBA "Quercus robur Pendulate Oak"
Julie Whelan SBA "Couroupita guianensis - Cannonball Tree"

Images of their artwork can be seen below. Shevaun Doherty's painting appears further down as it won another Award.

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Alcatraz Florilegium Returns to The Rock!

29/9/2017

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A new exhibition of botanical drawings and paintings documenting the plants of the Gardens of Alcatraz has been announced - and opened last week!

Details are below and you can see more pictures of the exhibit on the Facebook Page of the Northern California Society of Botanical Artists who organise the development of the Florilegium

The exhibition includes 127 works of art depicting a variety of “survivor” plants growing on the island. They were created by 77 NCalSBA artists and selected for the exhibition by a jury.

Alcatraz Florilegium
Venue: Prison Band Rehearsal Room, Alcatraz Island
Dates: September 16th 2017 - January 17th 2018
Organised by: a project of Northern California Society of Botanical Artists (NCalSBA) in collaboration with the Garden Conservancy

Below is the Alcatraz Island Florilegium Committee - Catherine Watters, Sally Petru, and Lyn Dahl

The Gardens of Alcatraz were restored by three organisations working together with much support from dedicated volunteers. In 2003, the Garden Conservancy, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and National Park Service began their collaboration to restore the historic gardens. As every gardener knows the work to plant and prune, compost and weed, restore and maintain the gardens never ends!

REFERENCE:

The Gardens of Alactraz - website
The Gardens of Alcatraz - a pdf file about the restoration of the
The Gardens of Alcatraz Florilegium

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Painting by numbers - Bauer at the Bodleian

29/4/2017

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A new botanical art display 'Painting by numbers' in Oxford is about the paintings of botanical artist Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826). It also covers research into the techniques he used to create the colours in his paintings for the Flora Graeca from sketches of plants and animals in the Eastern Mediterranean that were annotated with numbers.

The small display of about 12 items opens at the Weston Library (part of the Bodleian Libraries) in Oxford today. It's open daily from Saturday, 29th April 2017 until 9th July and admission is free. (Hours and more details of the venue at the end. [Note: This post was updated and revised after Bodleian advised on 2nd May that this is more of a small temporary display than an exhibition]

It's a display about both the art and science of the Flora Graeca - one of the first Floras to focus on a specific geographical area, in this case Greece. It's widely considered to be one of the finest examples of botanical illustration created from working in the field.

This article Bodleian display showcases scientific research into Bauer's botanical masterpieces comments on the scope of the exhibition

The Flora Graeca is one of the rarest and most expensive botanical books in the world. It took 54 years to produce and only 25 copies were first printed. It has come to be an important account of the plants of the eastern Mediterranean.

The display includes some of the finest botanical and zoological paintings in the world. Its main focus is on:

Bauer’s ground-breaking two-year expedition to the eastern Mediterranean with John Sibthorp (1758-96), the Sherardian Professor of Botany at Oxford. Sibthorp collected and described what they found while Bauer sketched and created dried specimens for the Herbaria.
Plus the current research by the Bodleian Libraries Heritage Science team to unravel Bauer’s painting by numbers system - and his approach and techniques for working with a colour chart and recording colours by number in the field. Hence the title!

The display showcases sketches and watercolours based on Bauer and Sibthorp’s journey around Greece and Turkey in 1786-88, where they studied the diversity of plants and wildlife and collected thousands of specimens of flora. Bauer made hundreds of pencil sketches of plants and animals during this trip and then came to Oxford where he spent six years (1788-1794) producing watercolours from these sketches. The numerical notes on Bauer’s botanical sketches indicate that he assigned different colours different numbers, and marked these numbers on his sketches, so when he later turned these into more detailed watercolours, he would know which colour to use where. This enabled him to replicate his sketches of flora and fauna to an amazing degree of accuracy, but researchers are still trying to understand exactly how this worked in practise, and if he used a colour chart that has since been lost, or if he simply had an astonishing colour memory.

Modern scientific analyses reveal the techniques Bauer used to transform his sketches into more than 1,200 of the finest natural history illustrations ever made.

Flora Graeca Delphinium consolida by Ferdinand Bauer

Image from Flora Graeca depicting Delphinium consolida

The Flora Graeca and Oxford

Most of the original plant specimens collected by Bauer and Sibthorp are now preserved in Oxford University Herbaria, whilst Bauer's original drawings and paintings are held at the Sherardian Library of Plant Taxonomy, part of the Bodleian Libraries.

The Flora Graeca has particularly strong associations with the University of Oxford and the Bodleian Libraries. It's extremely appropriate that this should be the place for this display. (You can read more about the Flora Graeca on my Florilegia and Flora Page in the History section.)

Four of the 25 copies are housed in Oxford and, of these two are in the Bodelian).
The Bodleian Library in Oxford has all the original watercolours for Flora Graeca produced by Bauer and the associated documentation and material about the survey.
The Oxford University Herbaria has digitized all its images of the plant specimens collected by Sibthorp and Bauer, available at: http://herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/sibthorpherbarium.

The complete series of printed volumes and original drawings have been digitised for the Oxford Digital Library.

Exterior view of the Weston Library, Oxford, taking in the entrace to Blackwell Hall on the left and the Readers' Entrance on the right. Photo taken by John Cairns with copyright owned by the client, Bodleian Libraries, and uploaded to Commons by an authorised employee of the Libraries.

More information about the exhibition

You can read more about the Flora Graeca and view digitised versions of Bauer's paintings by visiting the Florilegium and Flora Page on this website

This exhibition is also listed on my page about Botanical Art Exhibitions in Major Galleries and Museums in the UK.

Painting by numbers
Venue: Blackwell Hall, Weston Library Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BG
Dates: 29 April 2017 — 9 July 2017
Hours: Monday to Friday 8.30am-5pm; Saturday 9am-5pm; Sunday 11am-5pm
Admission: Admission is free
Weston Museum website: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/weston
Map of the different parts of the Bodleian complex
email: specialcollections.enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

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Book Review: "The Florilegium: The Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney: Celebrating 200 Years"

13/12/2016

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The botanical paintings included in The Florilegium: The Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney: Celebrating 200 Years are by members of The Florilegium Society at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney Inc. which was formed in 2005

This is very special publication.

It's the first time this Florilegium Society has published paintings in book form and has been a long time in the making..
It is one of the most impressive botanical art books published in 2016.
It also helped celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney.
Plus it is the catalogue of the paintings included in the Florilegium: Sydney's Painted Garden Exhibition which was held at the Museum of Sydney between 30 July and 30 October 2016. (The exhibition will also come to Kew in 2018).

The standard of the plant portraits is so high and the text so illuminating that this will make a memorable book and exhibition. I do hope that it will also be exhibited in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 2018
Dr. Shirley Sherwood Patron of the Florilegium Society

Cover of "The Florilegium. Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney. Celebrating 200 Years: Plants of the Three Gardens of the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust" published April 2016 © 2015 Foundation & Friends of the Botanic Gardens

You can find a list of all the artists and links to their websites in my earlier blog post "The Florilegium and the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney". You can also find out more about the plants recorded and the contributing artists in this List of Florilegium paintings and artists

The Society very kindly sent me a copy of the book to review. I was really pleased as I had it on my list of books to order - and this is that review which is a little bit later than I had planned!

It contains

87 paintings - displayed on full colour plates - by 41 Australian and 23 overseas artists.
botanical descriptions written by Louisa Murray, the Flora of NSW botanist and Collections Manager at the National Herbarium of NSW.
a preface by Dr Brett Summerell, the Director of Science and Conservation at the RBGDT
a preface by Dr Shirley Sherwood - the Patron of the Florilegium Society at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney
an excellent introduction by Beverley Allen, the President of the Florilegium Society.
an historical overview of the Gardens by Colleen Morris, a heritage consultant and former National Chair of the Australian Garden History Society and the curator of Florilegium: Sydney’s Painted Garden. She also provided information about the introduction of the plant to the garden.
information about the florilegium society and
biographies of the 64 artists and the two authors compiled by Angela Lober

The Florilegium Project

Florilegium Society President Beverley Allen provides an informative overview of the development of contemporary florilegium projects from the heritage of florilegia of the past. She discussses how this project was conceived as giving the Society ten years to produce a body of work to produce a record of the historical plants in time for the 200th anniversary celebrations in 2016, In other words this book has been in the planning pipeline for some considerable time!

She also describes well the demands upon the artist in completing a plant portrait.

The plants are painted life-size, unless noted otherwise on the painting, and most are reproduced at about half painted size. Some show the plant in its entirety, some the flower and fruiting bodies, in others, the focus is that most recognisable and showiest of all structures, the flower, further playing out its biological role in attracting attention.
Beverley Allen - President of the Florilegium Society

The Paintings

The first thing to emphasise is that the quality of the paintings is extremely high. This book really sets a standard for Florilegium Societies which will be difficult to match.

For all those florilegium societies contemplating a book in future, I very much recommend you get a copy of this book. It's an education in what's involved in developing a project and book like this.
For all those botanical artists hoping to contribute to prestigious florilegium collections in the future, this book provides an excellent introduction to the standards expected.

The botanical art displayed in this book is definitely at the high end of the spectrum; these are works of incredible accuracy and of undeniable beauty that fully respect the plants they portray,
Dr Brett Summerell (Preface) - Director of the RBGS

I like the fact that although many of the paintings fulfil what is required of them in terms of scientific accuracy and information about the plant, they also have a contemporary feel about them. It's good to see people not being constrained by conventional and traditional ideas of what botanical art "should look like". After all, the contemporary styles of today's top botanical artists might well be viewed as a more traditional perspective on botanical art in 100 years time as methods, styles and approaches continue to adapt and refine!

I also particularly like that this Society has sought contributions from excellent artists to achieve the standard of paintings included in the Florilegium. This means that a number of artists come from outside Australia and New Zealand. I'm guessing one of the incentives was to make sure enough artworks were completed before 2016 to ensure that there were enough excellent paintings to include in an exhibition and a book.

Dianne Sutherland-Ball (UK) painted the Jade Vine and flew to Sydney to visit the exhibition.

The Plants

In terms of the plants included, they are a mix of Australian Natives and plants imported to Australia and grown in the Botanic Garden.

Each plant has a double page spread of a full colour plate with a facing page of authoritative but accessible text providing both a description of the plant and a narrative about its history within the RBG Sydney.

When I first went to Australia (where my sister lives with her family) I was particularly struck by the different plants found "down under". This was reinforced when I paid my own visit to the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney. Recently I was reminded of this again when writing about Marianne North who was told by Charles Darwin that she needed to visit Australia to see and paint the native plants of Australia which she would not have seen elsewhere on her travels across many countries!

I was reminded again of the unique nature of some Australian plants and those that feature prominently as native plants while browsing this book. It's more than a portrait of the plants found in the Botanical Gardens in Sydney - it's also a portrait of Australia's native plant life.

At the same time it's a reflection of the scope and development of the collection at the RBGS over 200 years in terms of plants collected in other countries and introduced to the plant collections in the three gardens of RBGS during the 20th century.

The Book

In terms of the publication itself, it's printed on paper which lends itself to better quality colour reproduction of the images of the plants. However it's also slightly heavier paper which contributes to my only slight quibble about the book.

This is a HEAVY book. It's available both as a hardback and a paperback - and the version I have is a paperback. My preference when buying big heavy books is to buy a hardback - simply because I find they make me confident when handling them. The paperback version makes me feel I need to be careful in the way I handled it when reviewing the plates and the text. However I have a tilt stand for larger books and it was fine on that.

All in all, this is very definitely a book for any serious student of Florilegia and/or botanical art and/or a fan of the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney.

How to get a copy of "The Florilegium"

The book is being sold by: The Garden Shop at the RBGS, Florilegium and Summerfield Books to online purchasers.

These are the technical book details.

Title: The Florilegium. Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney. Celebrating 200 Years: Plants of the Three Gardens of the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust
Authors: Colleen Morris, Louisa J. Murray
Publisher: Florilegium Society at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney Incorporated, 2016
ISBN: 0994477910, 9780994477910
Length: 224 pages

REFERENCE

The book was published with the generous support of

the Australian Garden History Society - Kindred Spirits Fund.
the subscribers of the Florilegium Society who generously contributed the costs of publishing.

There's an article about the book in

The RBGS Foundation & Friends "Gardens" Magazine (Spring 2015)
the Australian Garden History Journal Vol. 28 No. 1 July 2016

You can see a brief biography and find a link to the website of some of the artists who contributed to this book on my page about Botanical Artists in Australia and New Zealand

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Basilius Besler and the Hortus Eystettensis

11/10/2016

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I recently transferred to this website a page about Basilius Besler and his development of the iconic Hortus Eystettensis - see About Basilius Besler (1561-1629).

Plate: 79 of the Hortus Eystettensis - Late white tulip, Golden garlic, Mountain garlic

Unlike most people I'm covering in botanical art history, Besler was NOT a botanical artist. Hhe was responsible for the development of a very important book - the Hortus Eystettensis published in 1613 - rather than the artist who created the illustrations for its pages.

The book is a florilegium and records the creation of all the known plants grown in the first botanical garden in Germany - created for the prince bishop of Eichstatt in Bavaria - and the only one at the time outside Italy.

It is one of the most famous books about plants ever recorded on paper and contains more than 1,000 flowers from 667 species. The species covered:

349 species from Germany,
209 South and Southeast European origin,
63 Asian,
9 African and
23 American species

About Basilius Besler covers:

a biography and timeline for Basilius Besler - who was a botanist, apothecary and botanical art book publisher
the structure and development of the Hortus Eystettensis
why the book about the garden is important to botanical art and
why Linnaeus rated it so highly.
where the garden at Eichstatt is and how you can visit that garden today.

plus links to further information and where you can see its botanical illustrations online.

Title Page of the "Hortus Eystettensis"

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