PAINTED HERBALS

PAINTED HERBALS

In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, herbals became thanks to overseas travels and discoveries emancipated as distinctive expressions of scientific botany. Paintings and drawings of plants reached a hitherto unsurpassed level of perfection: they captured in minute detail, and often inventively and with a degree of artistic licence, various plants from all possible angles and views. Such paintings were often works of art.

Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) has often been called ‘the Raffael of plants’: he was one of the leading representatives of botanical illustration and one of the most frequently reproduced artists overall. His watercolours of plants, especially roses and lilies, are most remarkably accurate and original. He had the opportunity to paint rare flowers grown in French courts from Versailles to Malmaison, in the Kew Botanical Gardens. His scope was vast and he captured various kinds of flora from all continents, creating over 2,100 plates depicting more than 1,800 plant species, many of which were thus captured for the very first time.

In the Czech Lands, important illustrators include the Bauer brothers from Valtice: Josef (1756–1831), Franz (1758–1840), and Ferdinand (1760–1826). Their illustrations for a publication now known as Codex Liechtenstein capture plants with scientific realism including natural imperfections, whereby each of the tables required about a week of intensive work.

Not all illustrators were, however, men. For instance, Elizabeth Blackwell (1707–1758) also created a herbal of plants and medicinal herbs, including those from the Americas. She is the author of around 500 illustrations and woodcuts, which she coloured herself. The first edition of her Curious Herbal met with a great success.