History of Botanical Illustration Research Papers (original) (raw)

A contribution to the history of European botanical illustration in the second half of the 16th century, this article presents both well-known and so far unknown actors in the production of illustrations of two Prague editions of the herbal of Pietro Andrea Mattioli: one in Czech (Herbář from 1562) and the other in German (Kreüterbuch from 1563). Close inspection of the 814 illustrations has revealed two new monograms of draughtsmen or cutters in the Herbář, making it possible to update their list: BMS, CG, DW, FP (or dF), GS, MH, SI (=IS) and WS. Based on art-historical dictionaries as well as research into early printed books and archival documents, the article presents hypotheses about the identity of the monogrammists.

Francesca Lui, Pomona 'picta' e 'descripta': Un itinerario nell’iconografia pomologica tra il XVI e il XX secolo attraverso le tecniche, in Miti, aere e scienza nella Pomologia italiana, a cura di Enrico Baldini, Roma, Consiglio Nazionale... more

- by Alain Touwaide
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- Classics, Art History, Medieval History, History of Medicine
- by Alain Touwaide
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- Classics, History of Medicine, History of the Book, History of Science

La corrispondenza fra Giorgio Gallesio e Ottaviano Targioni Tozzetti è conservata
in parte presso gli eredi del naturalista ligure e in parte presso la Biblioteca
Nazionale Centrale di Firenze.
Si tratta di 16 lettere scambiate fra i due scienziati, in un arco di tempo
abbastanza breve – fra il 1811 e il 1816, ma in gran parte si riferiscono agli
ultimi due anni – anche se significativo, a cavallo fra le prime esperienze editoriali
di Gallesio e l’uscita dei primi fascicoli della Pomona Italiana.
Per Gallesio, ancora impegnato a definire i caratteri essenziali della sua
opera fondamentale, Ottaviano Targioni Tozzetti – uno dei principali botanici
italiani del periodo – rappresenta un punto di riferimento per esperienza
e conoscenza, complementare all’altro collaboratore scientifico toscano del
periodo, Gaetano Savi, di cui era stato maestro.
Gallesio potrà affidare a lui il reperimento di frutti a Firenze, i consigli
sulla realizzazione dei primi fascicoli e l’impegno nella ricerca dei disegnatori
e incisori delle prime tavole della Pomona. Sarà lo scienziato fiorentino ad
indicare a Gallesio Antonio Serantoni, abile incisore di alcune fra le più belle
tavole dell’opera. La collaborazione fra i due scienziati è destinata però ad
interrompersi prima dell’uscita dei primi fascicoli dell’opera. La richiesta da
parte di Gallesio di collaborazione ancora più forte dello scienziato fiorentino
si scontrerà con le difficoltà di Targioni Tozzetti impegnato e diviso fra la
direzione dell’Orto Botanico, l’attività medica e l’insegnamento.
Le lettere aprono una finestra sui rapporti fra Giorgio Gallesio e la comunità
di scienziati – soprattutto botanici – toscani, di cui Ottaviano Targioni
Tozzetti era uno dei massimi esponenti, insieme a Gaetano Savi, ma testimoniano
anche il complesso processo di costruzione della Pomona Italiana.

Ellen Widder: Vom antiken Wissen zur modernen Wissenschaft. Wissenschaftshistorische Aspekte der Fuchs’schen Pflanzendarstellungen, in: Leonhard Fuchs (1501-1566) - Mediziner und Botaniker, hg. v. Gerd Brinkhus und Claudine Pachnicke,... more

- by Ellen Widder
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- Cultural History, Botany, Pharmacy, Medieval History

This book aims to highlight the exchanges between art and nature through the role of the Madrid’s Royal Botanical Garden as a meeting place for artists, scientists and intellectuals between the 15th and 21st centuries. It presents the results of several research lines in history of art and history of science, which participated in the 2016 European Researchers Night, a Europe-wide public event under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions of the European Commission dedicated to popular science.

- by Idoia Murga-Castro and +5
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- History of Science, History of photography, 20th century Avant-Garde, Art of Botanical Illustration

A new approach to Botany in the Arabic World

The Libri Picturati includes a collection of plant illustrations from seventeenth century Dutch Brazil that is kept in the Jagiellonian library in Krakow since World War II. While many studies focused on the artistic details and history of these images, we identified the flora depicted. We used contemporary textual sources (e.g., Historia Naturalis Brasiliae), monographs and taxonomist' assessments. We checked origin, life form, domestication and conservation status and the plant parts that are represented. We identified 198 taxa, consisting mostly of wild, native rainforest trees and 35 introduced species. Fertile branches are the most represented, although some loose dry fruits and sterile material were also painted, which sheds light into the collection methods by naturalists in Dutch Brazil. Several species are no longer abundant or have become invasive due to anthropogenic influences since colonialism. Through this botanical iconography, we traced the first records of the sunflower and the Ethiopian pepper in Brazil, as well as the dispersion and assimilation of the flora encountered in the colony by Indigenous, African and European peoples. We emphasized the relevance of combining visual and textual sources when studying natural history collections and we highlighted how digitalization makes these artistic and scientific collections more accessible.

This catalogue is dedicated to the memory of Wilfrid Blunt, art historian and author of the classic, "The Art of Botanical Illustration" - one of the first scholarly surveys of the history of botanical illustration. It is an honor that my botanical art is featured in this exhibition and the permanent collection of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.

- by Amy Eisenberg, Ph.D.
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- Botany, Botanical literature, Art of Botanical Illustration, Botanica

Biografia, a fumetti, di un noto botanico vissuto nel XIX secolo. Contestualmente si ricostruisce un pezzo di storia della scienza di quel tempo, il contesto, l'ambito e i personaggi scientifici, le scuole botaniche di riferimento... more

- by Gianni Palumbo and +1
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- Botany, Environmental Science, History of Science, Biography
- by Chiara Ponchia
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- Art History, Renaissance Art, History of Art, Medieval Art

The drawings from the Royal Botanical Expedition to Nueva Granada (1783-1816) are taken as an example of the genre of the depiction of nature. Nevertheless, their content goes beyond the specific task of a scientific endeavour. It is usually appointed the importance of botanic observation on those works for the evident collaboration between the scientist and the artist. That aspect reminds the idea of the art as ancilla ecclesiae but –in this case- as the servant of science. But the depth of the Painters Workshop work presents a situation in which the drawings seem to have the object to replace the living samples ¿it is appropriate to narrow the gaze of this exceptional group to the idea of scientific illustration? With the reduction of their work to illustrations ¿are we not denying the art contribution to the science as it would be ancilla scientiae? If we think according to the rigid historiographical classifications, the answer if affirmative; if thinking on a broader sense, then is the opposite. The work with images as sources, together with the writing ones, suppose a notion of the visual that mixes art and science since those botanical drawings present a problem of knowledge trough images. Therefore, an example of visual epistemology

The article explores the communication and mutual influence of botanists and artists who lived in Germany, Switzerland and Holland from the second half of the XVIth to the beginning of the XVIIth century. The choice of the areal and period of study is due to the active commu- nication among scientists on the reform of scientific knowledge, in particular botany. The new demands of scientists, who expected artists to help them visualize the morphological features of plants, clashed with a painting tradition that changed slowly and gradually. Eventually, by the early the XVIIth century, an understanding was achieved. Botanical illustrations acquired its main artistic features: clarity of contour, minimum chiaroscuro and muted colour. At the same time, painters who worked in the genre of flower still life in Holland at the beginning of
78 Из истории культуры, искусства, художественного воспитания и образования
the XVIIth century were also significantly influenced by botanists. Several features appeared in the early Dutch still life: gathering of plants blooming in different months into one bouquet, collage method, composing a bouquet like a "table" of the Kunstkammer, uniform illumina- tion, absence of space depth and crossing of objects, exotic, rare and expensive flowers, espe- cially tulips.

Moochy artists from south India traditionally painted royal portraits and religious subjects in the miniature style for eager European patrons. At the turn of the 19th century, Raja Serfoji II of Tanjore encouraged them to adopt a “modern” hybrid style and turn to subjects of natural history. This essay aims to historically situate three albums of botanical art commissioned by the Raja and bring to light a hitherto unknown agricultural manuscript predating these albums, all of which were illustrated by locals. It shows how the project of modernizing the Tanjore moochy, might be read as yet another facet of the Tanjore Enlightenment shaped up by the Raja.

En el presente artículo se presenta un análisis del uso del dibujo en la Expedición Botánica del Nuevo Reino de Granada. Con este propósito se revisa el concepto de…

Communication dans le cadre de la journée d'étude "Perceptions et représentations du motif végétal sur les matériaux périssables en Europe occidentale, XIIe-XXe siècles", organisée par les les doctorants du Centre d’Histoire « Espaces et Cultures » (CHEC – EA 1001), laboratoire d’histoire, histoire de l’art et archéologie de l’Université Clermont Auvergne.