Tag: botanical illustration
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helle-bore-us
Warning: this missive contains more helle-boring content! After learning about hellebores and their nectaries I was left wondering at what point, in the history of science, the crucial role these structures played in pollination had been understood. How had early botanists looked at hellebores? How had hellebores been represented in botanical art and illustration? Some…
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Marianne North
Hello, it’s Michelle here, with a post about Marianne North (1830–1890), a Victorian traveller and nature artist who left an extraordinary legacy. Painting 684. North painted the sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) from a garden specimen in Java. For almost 140 years North’s paintings have been on permanent display in the gallery she established at the…
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troubled
Needled reviews Louise Bourgeois, Nature Study. Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. Until July 6th. I like Louise Bourgeois. I like what she stands for. She’s a woman whose early work challenges and outlasts so many of her surrealist contemporaries, with their ludicrous, dick-swinging excesses. I like her investigative, excavatory treament of sexuality and power. I particularly…