Better than a thousand words

In May 1988, the month of her 79th birthday, botanical artist and self-trained botanist Margaret Mee set out on a journey up the Amazon River in Brazil. Her goal: to find and paint the short-lived flowers of a night-blooming epiphytic cactus known as the “moonflower” (Selenicereus wittii). Mee did indeed track down her elusive quarry, which she painted at night by the dim illumination of a flashlight to prevent the sensitive flowers from fading and closing. The trek was the last of a series of arduous and often danger-filled adventures that Mee undertook to document the botanical splendors of the Amazon rain forest. She recorded her observations in stunning botanical drawings and paintings as well as written diaries. Her paintings, rendered in gouache (a type of water-color), are remarkable for their combination of delicate beauty and technical accuracy and for the keen love of nature that they convey. The qualities of artistic appeal and technical accuracy seen in Mee's work are the defining characteristics of the best botanical art and illustration. This genre encompasses works ranging from highly technical scientific drawings, to illustrations for books on horticulture, to paintings made simply for the sake of beauty. The term “botanical illustration” is sometimes used to denote the more technical scientific illustrations within the larger genre of botanical art, but the distinction between botanical art and botanical illustration can be blurry. One thing is clear, however: All these works share an emphasis on careful observation and accurate rendering of botanical subjects so that the image is clearly “readable” by the viewer. By contrast, depictions of flowers in which realism takes a back seat to aesthetics—such as paintings by Claude Monet or Georgia O'Keeffe—are not generally classified as botanical art. “If you're not using observation and accuracy in your work, then you're not a botanical artist,” explains Michelle Meyer, a botanical artist specializing in orchids and president of the American Society of Botanical Artists. Botanical art, she says, is “art in the service of science.” Indeed, Alice Tangerini, staff illustrator for the botany department at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) says, “one of the ways that somebody distinguished botanical art from fine art is that botanical art had to be recognized at least to genus, if not to species.” But beauty need not suffer in the pursuit of science. Indeed, Meyer notes, the botanical artist's objective is “to in some way bring the beauty of the plant into that drawing and painting.” And even the most technical illustrations of plants can be lovely to look at. “To be a true scientific drawing it has to be accurate…but that doesn't mean that it's not a beautiful piece of work that people put on their wall,” asserts Mindy Lighthipe, a botanical artist and coordinator of the botanical art and illustration program at the New York Botanical Garden. For centuries, botanists, physicians, and pharmacists have used pictures to identify, analyze, and classify plants. “Perhaps more than any other scientific discipline botany has been dependent on illustrations for its development,” Gill Saunders, a curator at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, wrote in her book Picturing Plants: An Analytical History of Botanical Illustration. She went on, “The illustrations stand for the thing itself, which is ephemeral, fragile, and often unable to survive removal from its original environment.” Plant collectors, gardeners, and amateur nature lovers too have turned to pictures of plants for information as well as enjoyment. The history of botanical art as a source of accurate and useful information about plants is generally considered to have begun in classical times, with the publication of the first known herbals—books describing the medicinal properties of plants. Although herbals continued to be produced for many centuries, the accuracy of their images degenerated as artists turned to copying earlier illustrations instead of working from actual specimens. It was not until the Renaissance, and the resurgence of naturalism, that herbals once again included accurate representations of plants drawn from nature. The art of realistic flower painting and illustrating revived and expanded during this period, particularly in northern Europe, where artists such as Albrecht Diirer created works whose intent was more decorative than practical but that were nonetheless notable for their attention to realistic detail. The “golden age” of botanical art spanned approximately 1740–1840, when it was fostered by the great period of exploration and discovery. This era saw the development of scientific botany and an interest in finding new species. Botanists and naturalists often worked closely with artists who could provide accurate and detailed studies of plants in the field and specimens brought back from faraway lands. During this same period, a popular pursuit among wealthy amateur horticulturists in Europe was the cultivation of exotic plants, notably tulips, in their gardens and greenhouses. And these rich plant collectors, too, employed artists to accurately record their treasured specimens. After the mid-1800s, the overall quality of botanical art declined and its popularity in some places (particularly the United States) diminished greatly. The reasons are varied but may include the decline in natural history as science became professionalized. The development of photography has been suggested as partially responsible for the wane of botanical art, but photographs are in fact seldom an adequate substitute for botanical illustrations. “You can never get all the information about a plant in a photograph, because something's always out of focus or in a shadow, [whereas] in a botanical [illustration] you can bring everything into perfect focus,” Meyer says. “You can also show something of the entire life cycle of a plant,” she notes—a practice seen especially in scientific illustrations of plants. Beginning in the 1970s, botanical art experienced a resurgence that continues today. Collectors not only covet the works of golden-age masters, such as Pierre-Joseph Redouté and Georg Dionysius Ehret, but also are patrons of contemporary botanical artists. Modern-day plant collectors, too—particularly orchid growers—like to have paintings made of their prize specimens. This renewed interest is leading to a rise in the popularity of botanical art and illustration as both vocation and avocation, and programs that teach this art form are adding classes and scrambling to find more instructors. Why the current renaissance of botanical art? Meyer cites the increased popularity of gardening and a renewed interest in the environment. “People are more and more interested in or missing some kind of a connection with the natural world, and there's tremendous appeal to collecting [the type of] art that brings that to them,” she says. James White, curator of art at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, at Carnegie Mellon University, sees the trend as “a return to basics” in the face of an increasingly technological culture. Admirers of botanical art, he says, are drawn by a desire to behold the beauty and awe of nature. Throughout the history of botanical art, the intended purpose of an image has in large part dictated how it is made and exactly what it portrays. In 1965, Lyman B. Smith, a botanist at the Smithsonian Institution, bought 20 of Margaret Mee's paintings for the Smithsonian—including this gouache painting of Aechmea fosteriana. These and other paintings by Mee were published in The Bromeliads (A. S. Barnes and Company, 1969), with accompanying text by Smith. Illustration courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution. An illustration for a scientific article or book, for example, is likely to be more detailed than one for a gardening magazine. Botanists use botanical illustrations in floras (books that describe all the plants of a particular country or region), in monographs about taxonomic groups, and in journal articles describing newly discovered plant species. The illustrations appear together with detailed descriptions (“treatments”) of the plant written by the botanist. “If the illustrations work well, they will complement the writing” and clarify details that are difficult to describe in words, says Yevonn Wilson-Ramsey, a botanical illustrator at the Missouri Botanical Garden who is working on the Flora of North America project (see box page 604). The scientific illustrations of plants that accompany scholarly works have a clear purpose, and although there are variations in style among artists, all scientific illustrations of plants must follow certain conventions so that botanists can easily interpret the images. One convention is the general format for the illustrations. Scientific illustrators usually begin by depicting the overall “habit” of the plant—a life-sized view of the entire plant, often with the roots. If the habit is too large to fit on the page, the illustrator may show just a flowering branch or reduce the habit to a small inset on the page. The artist then moves to more detailed drawings of various parts of the plant, such as the flowers, fruit, and seeds, often including cutaways, dissections, and magnifications of some of these structures. All of these views of the plant are then combined on a single page or plate. This pen-and-ink drawing of Stromanthe stromanthoides, a plant in the family Marantaceae, is one of a series of scientific illustrations that will appear in a classification and treatise of the genera of the Zingiberanae superorder being written by John Kress, chairman of the botany department at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). Drawing by Alice Tangerini, Department of Botany, NMNH, Smithsonian Institution. Botanists can now find botanical illustrations and descriptions online that may be useful in their work. The Flora of North America (FNA) project is an effort by US and Canadian botanists to provide information about the approximately 21,000 species of plants in North America north of Mexico that grow outside of gardens and farms. One-third of the species described in FNA will be illustrated, according to Yevonn Wilson-Ramsey, of the Missouri Botanical Garden, an illustrator and illustrations coordinator for the project. The taxonomic treatments and illustrations being produced for FNA are being published electronically on the Web at www.faa.org and as 30 printed volumes by Oxford University Press (three volumes have already been published and four are online). The Smithsonian Catalog of Botanical Illustrations, a database describing several thousand scientific illustrations belonging to the Smithsonian Institution, is maintained by Alice Tangerini, staff illustrator for the Smithsonian's Department of Botany and curator of the collection. Selections from the collection, some of which date back to 1830, are being put online by Ellen Farr and Laurence Dorr, also of the botany department, with the help of volunteers. Approximately 500 illustrations from the collection, which is organized by plant family and now searchable by generic name, are available at www.nmnh.si.edu/botart/. Scientific botanical illustrators follow other conventions as well. “One of the main conventions is [the] light source,” Tangerini says. “It's always from the upper left—at least in the Western Hemisphere,” she says, noting that she has seen botanical drawings from India in which the light source was from the upper right. Scientific illustrations are most often done in black and white, usually with pen and ink or brush and ink. Half-tone drawings, which are more costly to print, may be used to give a better indication of mass and color. Scientific illustrators rarely use color, mainly because of the economics of printing, but also because adding color may obscure the essential “characters” of the plant, such as the pattern of veins in the leaves or the way in which the stamens are attached in the flower. Another convention has to do with when and how to drop out lines or show a break in the drawing. For example, if the artist decides not to show a particular leaf, she must indicate the omission in some way, such as by sketching in the base of the leaf. The amount of shading in scientific illustrations is kept to a relative minimum so as not to obscure the characters of the plant, although just how much shading constitutes too much or too little, Tangerini says, is a matter of artistic judgment. Other aspects of scientific botanical illustration also fall into the realm of individual artistic judgment and style. Although illustrators who for botanists must their subjects from a scientific they to out so that they look so that they will the of the Tangerini says. The to have some of appeal or people look at Botanical art that not fall into the of technical scientific illustration also to follow certain the artist will include small views of individual parts of the plant, such as the flower or fruit, to the representations in more technical illustrations. One of the most in botanical art is that the is at and on a as if it were in focus attention on the some botanical artists are more likely to the plant in its natural and may even a of plants in a particular In her paintings from the Mee often a plant within its to the on its environment. are also more likely to be in their natural in field which became popular in the with the rise of the amateur The most used for botanical that are not intended for use in scientific is in part because the paint but also as Meyer can get a using of the light the and the color from But beautiful botanical paintings and illustrations are also made using and and even as in the of scientific illustrations of plants, attention to and of the are in botanical art created for botanical include representations of a as well as the plant This and gouache painting of a with orchids was made by Mindy Lighthipe, of the New York Botanical Garden, on a to a on the of has been illustrations to the for use in The plants drawn and painted by botanical artists may be plants in their natural such as Mee or plants in a or brought into the artist's In the of scientific the is often a plant that was and between of in a that the but leaves it and can usually an illustration was made from a plant or from a Drawing from a a “You have to the plant as it Tangerini of this with she says, but artists also often to photographs of the plant if they are available or to published descriptions of the plant or a species. In some the botanist can describe to the artist what the plant in the Tangerini notes, some have at because some of the that have the date back to the or This gouache and painting of plant that on the of other drawn in in the of by a botanical artist from Brazil. She is one of several of the family who use their drawings of and plants of the rain to the and help natural Illustration courtesy of Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, working from botanical illustrators sometimes parts of the plant by to for a in a of and a or the artist may only be to small parts of the plant, such as the The illustrator is also likely to parts of the plant, such as the flowers and the she can the and views in most scientific botanical technical botanical artists are much more likely to plants from But painting plants in the field has its “It's difficult in the field to use says a scientific illustrator at the University of The great you you can she says. and can to the most artists and in the the plant, and example, with a small box of that they with the painting in the the or intent of their work, botanical artists must certain “The says John Kress, chairman of the department of botany at NMNH, an to be to botanical in can always from a it's for reasons or it's for scientific has at the plant and who of of who about plants often of The other but of a botanical artist is the to the of on a page. Scientific illustrators usually begin by with the botanist to find out what details need to be drawn and to get more information about their The illustrator may also descriptions of the plants. have to about the have to even Tangerini says. must also that the they are drawing is of that species. is as the and the of the says “You must never that you're not is a of this plant,” she says, noting that the of a particular have been or to the an may have all or part of a leaf. Drawing a of a plant is because the illustration may be used by other botanists to that species in the field or among or to that plant from species. of a botanical artist was described by and in The of Botanical considered the book on this great botanical artist must have a for they “You can set a to a But he what he is he the flower in all its in all the of its there will be something in Meyer noting that something so about a with a you and paint a particular plant, you so much and it in a way that people do on a that something Botanical artists and illustrators have a of and may the field from fine art, horticulture, or general are of one of a small of programs in botanical art and are botanical artists their in part by created by other contemporary artists and the great of the botanical artists and illustrators that some of botany is in their work, although many up this on the says that in botany is not essential for being a great botanical the thing as the to and if one can and that is as as any or in he says. their work, botanical illustrators can many scientific of beautiful In the Mee best these She discovered and new species in her of the created stunning art both her art and became an for in a in botanical artists accompany botanists on of as they did in the and centuries, and are in the that Mee contemporary botanical artists may to exotic and or their and the plant life that they and art works that help the about and to the is organized by the at The for the is the National Museum of Natural Smithsonian Institution, in where Mee's paintings, with some of her and are on 20 in is a of botanical illustration by the American Society of Botanical and the of Natural The will be on at the Missouri Botanical Garden in from to in with the Botanical The art department at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, a of Carnegie Mellon University in has one of the of botanical art and illustration. in the Institute was the Hunt Botanical in of its who had botanical art, and to this has been described by one botanical artist as to the The Web is is one artist who the of exploration and her work. She first to on a and drawing the plant and life at a and to which she has been illustrations for use in on from her work at New York Botanical Garden, botanical and illustration to in a and that at and other in This and other art are organized by an artist and of an who artists to of their work to the they In several of the family are on Mee's by drawing the and plants of the rain and using their art “to the and natural history says. The Hunt Institute the their first North American in This fall the will an by an who of much the to the as a thing of beauty and as a useful or a or a to or small says. Botanical art can even as the for scientific than simply illustrating the made by Mee's work was so accurate in its that it a new of and track it down in the Mee had discovered and painted the plant, a on the River in and it but she never published that and her in an botanical botanical illustrators are of the of Natural an in by a of illustrators at the National Museum of Natural that with one in the and The American Society of Botanical in is to of botanical art and to its and The of Botanical Illustration. Gill Picturing Plants: An Analytical History of Botanical Illustration. University of and that the plant, which he first saw in a photograph, was simply a of whose of flowers are But Mee's with a single in the of by of the Missouri Botanical Garden, that the plant was in fact a species or and several down the plant in a the of the River in then published the of this new of in a botanical it in of Mee's to botanical illustration even a in the development of the a whose to a new and for of the first botanists in during for a and source of for the of one he a drawing in a botany book of a large species of a type of by as the of earlier that the plant, whose can up to was a likely source of large of a that could be used as the for information he in the botany book, down a source of the plants in Mexico and used for work. can also when a botanist works with a botanical as both botanists and artists “The artist has attention to details the the has because the artist has to there and and single part of this plant,” says. Tangerini what many botanical illustrators have botanist already has a of what because at was at it with a new set of had so was drawing exactly what and in some saw that the botanist had The botanical to closely and clearly record is a in the continued of this art do this work, but an illustrator and in that what Albrecht says. at the by an on the of what exactly what the to Although botanists and artists on of on the of such as or and the for new species This with the general renewed of the natural world, to the continued popularity of botanical art and the need for of this art. describe the last species of plant and on the says, being