illustration

Articles (18) | Photos (2) | Answers (0)

Articles & Photos

Before there was Instagram, there was the Claude glass—a small, tinted, convex mirror that was popular in the 18th century. Toted in artists' cases and tourists' pockets, the portable mirror offered a transformed view of the scenery that became popular with wealthy British vacationers—a world viewed through a Claude glass was a journey through ephemeral snapshots of softly-rendered nostalgia.

Art + Botany: Rachel Pedder-Smith's Herbarium Specimen Painting

By Anna Laurent

Painted from specimens in Kew's Herbarium, Rachel Pedder-Smith's Herbarium Specimen Painting is an 18-foot masterpiece of botanic illustration, and a tapestry with hundreds of narratives that depict a history of plant evolution and scientific discovery.

Art + Botany: Sally Jacobs Watercolor Exhibit

By Anna Laurent

Botanical illustrator Sally Jacobs finds her subjects at Los Angeles farmers markets. A show of her vegetable watercolor portraits just opened at a gallery in Bergamot Station, Santa Monica.

Art + Botany: The North American Sylva

By Anna Laurent

Written by French botanists who explored North American forests in the late 1700s, The North American Sylva is a monumental work with masterful illustrations and extensive botanic profiles. The book would help France reforest its post-war countryside, and become a landmark in North American forestry. Today, it remains readable and interesting—certainly a work of evergreen value.

Art + Botany: Plants in Peril

By Anna Laurent

A dual exhibition at Kew Botanical Gardens features Plants in Peril and Losing Paradise, showing illustrations of endangered plants through the world. The exhibition closes March 18, 2012, so go see it if you can!

Art + Botany: Shoe Fleur

By Anna Laurent

We talk with photographer Michel Tcherevkoff about his collection of imagined floral shoes, Shoe Fleur.

Art + Botany: Severin Roesen's Still Life Paintings

By Anna Laurent

Severin Roesen is recognized as one of America's preeminent still-life painters and several of his meticulously detailed paintings are included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new American Wing.

Art + Botany: Mrs. Delany's Floral Collage

By Anna Laurent

At age 72, 18th-century British artist Mary Delany began her floral collages. In an age of decoupage and floral paintings, her intricate paper art was a nod to both, and a new style of botanic art.

Botanic Notables: Acanthus

By Anna Laurent

A dramatic accent to modern-day gardens, Acanthus plants were also the inspiration for Corinthian columns, the art of William Morris, and mid-century motifs.

Art + Botany: Moss Art

By Anna Laurent

In the last several years, artists have reclaimed moss as a medium, creating site-specific installations to reclaim public spaces, and creating a new sort of growing, living graffiti.