What's the difference between
botanical art, botanical illustration, botanical painting
and flower painting?
The greatest flower artists have been those who have found beauty in truth; who have understood plants scientifically, but who have yet seen and described them with the eye and hand of the artist.
Wilfrid Blunt - Ch. 1 The Flower Artist in "The Art of Botanical Illustration"
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Put simply the differences relate to EMPHASIS:
Botanical illustration / plant illustration The emphasis is on the botanical accuracy to enable identification of a plant and create a scientific record. Conventional botanical illustrations are made from live plants or herbarium specimens to illustrate a botanical text (e.g. an article or monograph). Typically, the illustration will depict ALL relevant aspects of the plant, including the life cycle, that enable accurate identification. It frequently includes relevant dissections for species identification. Over 90% of botanical illustrations are monochrome (drawn in pen and ink or digitally) to permit publication without the expense of colour reproduction. Botanical art Artwork is always scientifically and botanically correct but not necessarily complete. More emphasis is placed on the aesthetic value of the plant or flower but without the requirement for ALL the information required by the botanists. Artwork is frequently in colour (on a plain background). It may also include a record of the plant growing in its natural habitat. Botanical art may form part of a project and contribute to a flora - records made of plants in a geographical location or garden. Flower painting and "plant portraits" The emphasis is much more about a pleasing painting and much less on the botanical accuracy or natural colours or the various features of the flower. Flowers are often found in vases sitting within a still life context - or in a garden or the countryside. The style of painting may be more impressionistic, colours and/or relative size may not be entirely true. Informing or educating for scientific purposes are not of primary importance. Note: Flower painting is also NOT the focus of the content of this site |
A Magnolia species: flowering stem with labelled floral segments, fruit and seed. Coloured etching by G. D. Ehret, c.1737, after himself. Source: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
"This plant produced it's beautifull flowers in ye garden of Sr. Charles Wager at Parson's Green near Fulham Augt 1737." Georg Ehret |
BELOW you can find various definitions and comments on the differences
between botanical art, botanical illustration, botanical painting and other forms of art which portray plants
between botanical art, botanical illustration, botanical painting and other forms of art which portray plants
Botanical Illustration is a genre of art that endeavours to faithfully depict and represent the form, colour, character and detail of a plant, identifiable to species or cultivar level. The best botanical illustration successfully combines scientific accuracy with visual appeal. It must portray a plant with the precision and level of detail for it to be recognised and distinguished, from another species. Contemporary botanical art grows from long established traditions, integrating the history of art and the sciences of botany, horticulture, medicine and agriculture. |
Contemporary botanical artists work in a variety of media including traditional watercolor on paper as well as colored pencil, gouache, oil, ink, silverpoint and graphite on vellum, mylar, and other substrates. Selection and treatment of subject matter are as varied as nature itself. |
No camera could record the detail required by botanists, and captured by the artists. Thus botanical illustration is an essential means of plant identification, and is regarded as an important scientific tool One basic difference between a botanical artist and a flower painter is intention: the botanical artist wishes his (or mostly her) work to be useful to the scientist. Each painting here is botanically accurate, often displaying roots, seeds and buds as well as flowers and leaves. “If you're not using observation and accuracy in your work, then you're not a botanical artist,” |
"Botanical painting is the painstaking delineation of a particular plant through the medium of paint with a scientific end in view". "The art of botanical painting continues even in the face of enhanced photographic technology and the digital revolution, for there is simply no substitute for the discerning talents of the artist capturing the essence of plant form." "Botanical artists are in fact scientific professionals. They help me identify grasses, which often have tiny spikelets and other small structures that I need to compare in order to understand what makes one grass different to another. An illustration gives a better impression than my five pages of Latin text that goes alongside it! But it’s not just a communication tool, it is a scientific tool and absolutely essential." |
It is important that the terms used to describe the illustrations should be clearly defined. Representations of plants fall roughly into two main categories. First are those images which the primary aim of the artist is to provide a decorative or pleasing representation of a plant, whether singly or in a group, and in which the general appearance of the plant is captured, without without botanical accuracy. These may be called "plant portraits". Second are those images in which the primary intention of the artist is to record and instruct. These may be called "plant illustrations"....."Representations of plants in many medieval herbals fall into the second category"
Medieval Herbals: The Illustrative Traditions (Introduction page 27) By Minta Collins
For years, art pundits have tried to deny botanical art a status as “real art”. I think they believe it is only “copying”. Most of them have as little idea of the exquisite variations in, say, violas or irises as do the curators of most modern picture galleries, people who are clueless about the flowers in their pictures. It has not helped that botanical art is closely related to science. I also think male pundits look on “flower painting” as the hobby of frustrated housewives or Women’s Institute members. London’s Kew celebrates the plants and botanical artists of Japan by Robin Lane Fox | Financial Times
See below for an expanded explanation of the differences between scientific botanical illustration and botanical art.
Please note: it is not uncommon for some texts to confuse botanical art and flower painting (e.g. the introduction to Contemporary Botanical Illustration: Challenging Colour and Texture By Rosie Martin, Meriel Thurstan)
See also
Please note: it is not uncommon for some texts to confuse botanical art and flower painting (e.g. the introduction to Contemporary Botanical Illustration: Challenging Colour and Texture By Rosie Martin, Meriel Thurstan)
See also
- What is Botanical Illustration? for an account of the development of botanical illustration for scientific purposes
- Scientific Botanical Illustration in the Botany Section of this site for practical tips for how to draw plants accurately.
REFERENCE:
- BioScience Journal | Better than a thousand words - Botanical artists blend science and aesthetics (Oxford Journals BioScience Volume 49, Issue 8 Pp. 602-608)
What's the History of Botanical Art?
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People have been drawing and painting flowers for a very long time. See
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The Video below was made by the Natural History Museum in London (see Permanent Collections UK) to provide a short overview of the development of botanical art and natural history art over time
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Herbals
Books have played a very significant role in the history of botanical illustration and the painting of plants and flowers. Initially, records of plants were made for a Herbal - this is a book of plants which describes their appearance, their properties and how they may be used for preparing ointments and medicines.
The German herbalist Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566) was responsible for the publication of a Great Herbal, called De Historia Stirpium Commentarii Insignes which radically improved the illustration of plants of medicinal use. Botanical artists have also created Herbals. One such example was the enterprising Elizabeth Blackwell (1701-1758). |
Exploration
The Age of Discovery (15th - 18th centuries) found artists travelling with explorers and scientists to new lands where they collected evidence of 'new' plants and flowers. Records were made on their travels and on their return of the botanical material that was collected.
For example, Sydney Parkinson (1745-1771) and Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826) recorded the appearance of new plants and flowers found on scientific expeditions to explore new lands - such as Australia. Parkinson's work was developed into Banks Florilegium. One of the greatest botanical artists was also a scientist who discovered the process of metamorphosis. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647 - 1717) travelled to Surinam and portrayed the life cycle of insects with their specific host plants of choice. Discovery - and botanical art - continued in the 19th and 20th centuries. Marianne North (1830-1890) did something the botanical illustrators rarely do, she painted plants in situ, within their habitat, all over the world. Margaret Mee (1909-1988) was renowned for her exploration of the Amazon Rain Forest and recording the Brazilian flora she found. |
Gardens and Florilegium
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As people became interested in creating gardens full of plants from a particular locality - or from across the world - they wanted a way to record what they had created - and so was born the unique plant record known as the Florilegium (plural Florilegia). This contained a collection of illustrations of all the plants and flowers in a garden. (However the name also became associated with records of a specific place)
Botanic Gardens also became very special places where specimens from across the world either grew and/or were preserved in Herbaria |
Early sponsors of botanical art, such as Basilius Besler (1561-1629), developed records of important gardens such as the botanical garden developed by the Prince Bishop of Eichstatt in Bavaria.
Subsequently patrons employed botanical artists to complete series of paintings relating to specific gardens. Very famous botanical artists such as George Ehret (1708-1770) and Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840) both illustrated gardens. Others, such as Franz (Francis) Bauer (1758-1840) spent most of their careers as botanical illustrators associated with a specific garden. Franz was appointed as 'Botanick Painter to His Majesty'' at the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. |
The Golden Age of Botanical Art
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The Golden Age of Botanical Art has been defined by Martyn Rix as peaking in the period c.1750 - c.1850.
This was an age characterised by:
During the 18th century, botanical drawing also became a fashionable pastime for aristocratic ladies - and a number of prominent botanical artists also acted as tutors. |
What is the difference between botanical art and botanical illustration? In art, the finished painting is the whole object of the artist, and it has no further purpose than to be admired. The Illustration should have a generality that ignores the imperfections of the individual specimens, and so can represent the species or particular form of a species. |
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The Golden Age of Botanical Art
by Martyn Rix This book starts around 4,500 years ago and finishes with contemporary botanical art. In between it explores the origins of botanical art and and the range of botanical art produced - from florilegia to art produced as the result of travels by botanical artists (or plant explorers) to many different places. His particular focus is on the art associated with the period from 1750 to 1850. He also highlights the range of ways in which art and illustration have been produced and a number of the people who are key to its history. The illustrations in this book are superb and many of them are very large. |
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from Amazon.comThe Science of Botanical Illustration
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This is the original approach to portraying plants and flowers.
Illustrations for Herbals were for scientific purposes - allowing people to identify plants with medicinal value. Over time, a technical method of illustrating the botanical features of a plant developed. |
Botanical Illustration is a genre of art that endeavours to faithfully depict and represent the form, colour and detail of a plant, identifiable to species level. |
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Today the work of botanical illustrators involves creating detailed scientific illustrations which detail:
Botanical illustrators frequently work from observation of real plants:
It's also not uncommon for botanical illustrators to travel to different parts of the world to pursue their occupation by recording plants in situ in their natural environment. |
Cephalotaxus harringtonia (syn. C. pedunculata) (1870) in Flora Japonica
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“Perhaps more than any other scientific discipline botany has been dependent on illustrations for its development,” |
VIDEO: In this video Sarah Simblet ( a fine artist, teacher and author of 'Botany for the Artist') talks in detail to Nicki Westcott at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens about the differences within botanical illustration and art from different perspectives.
It's one of the best monologues on this topic that I've ever heard.
It's one of the best monologues on this topic that I've ever heard.
The Artistry of Botanical Art
"The photograph will give you a very good idea of a plant's habitat," explains Dr Sherwood. "But when it comes to the nitty gritty, a botanist will always consult a drawing."
Botanists still prefer paintings to photographs | The Independent 1996
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Over time artists began to develop ways of portraying plants and flowers which were aesthetically pleasing as well as botanically correct.
Botanical art or botanical painting might be described as retaining a lot of the features of the technically correct illustrations while placing much more emphasis on aesthetics and artistry where possible.
Professional and more experienced artists addressing the botanical aspects of their art often develop a good knowledge and understanding of botany. (see Botany for Botanical Artists and Illustrators) |
DEFINITION: “BOTANICAL ART” IS |
What is 'Contemporary Botanical Art'?
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A lot of today's botanical artists use 'contemporary' to describe their botanical art - meaning 'belonging to the present' - and that's certainly one meaning of the word.
However 'contemporary' also can be used to reference the innovation and originality which is currently making itself known and which makes botanical art today different from that in the past. "Distinctively different in the present" if you like. One of the interesting aspects of recent judging of RHS Botanical Art Shows is that the Panel of Judges have been looking out for 'contemporary botanical art' and by that they mean the latter definition. |
The botanical art tradition combines science and art. Botanical art encompasses a range of styles and may take the form of scientific illustration or realistic drawing and painting of botanical subjects. Botanical artists seek to understand the structure of plants and to communicate this knowledge to their audience in an aesthetically pleasing manner. The subject plant must be the prominent feature of the work. All images should be of work executed by hand in traditional botanical media Botanical art is art whose goal is to depict whole plants or parts of plants in a manner that is both aesthetically pleasing and scientifically accurate. |
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Who's displaying new ways of representing plant life?
Examples of artists in the 20 century who created innovation include:
How to be a Botanical Artist
In How to be a botanical artist the botanical artists and illustrators who produce work for the botanists at Kew Gardens have reflected on
How to be a Botanical Illustrator See
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![P. sukhakulii, C. lindeniana [Paphiopedilum and Cypripedium] (Watercolour on paper, 1989) © Estate of Pandora Sellars. Courtesy of RHS Library Collections](/uploads/4/6/6/0/46602337/a-ps-1x550_1_orig.jpg)
P. sukhakulii, C. lindeniana [Paphiopedilum and Cypripedium] (Watercolour on paper, 1989) © Estate of Pandora Sellars. Courtesy of RHS Library Collections
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