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Recording nature: Botanical illustrations
by:
Amanda Ahmed
Botanical illustration has the ability to transgress the boundaries between art and science. Not only are the works aesthetically pleasing to the eye but they provide an accurate representation of the form and botany of the plant. Illustrators often work closely with botanists to meet strict botanical standards to provide an exact record of the plants distinguishing characteristics. However, in order to meet such requirements, the ongoing difficulty for all botanical illustrators is the longevity of the plant specimen. How does the illustrator manage issues of time in order to successfully record nature's work?
The dilemmas of documenting plant life for botanical illustrators have not altered much over the centuries. The processes of drawing and recording information in the field can take from a few minutes to hours. Generally, samples of the plants are brought back to the studio where a finished watercolour can take anywhere from days to weeks or even years.
Despite the onset of photography, issues of colour, light and form are problematic. Other factors to consider are: plant availability, it might be a rare or endangered species; accessibility and geography; scale; flowering periods may be short-lived and the list goes on.
There were at least three basic strategies utilised in the late eighteenth century by botanical illustrators as a means of recording colour and form of plant specimens in the field. According to Lack and Ib￡nﾽz they were:
(1) describing the colours in technical terms, i.e. words, (2) painting only very small portions of individuals parts, i.e. by colour references, (3) describing colour in an abbreviated or coded form, e.g. as numbers referring to a colour chart.1
Sydney Parkinson (1745-1771), who served as a natural history artist on James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific on the Endeavour in 1768, adopted the first two methods of recording producing 'a total of 674 unfinished pencil outline drawings.'2 The sheer number of plants to document left Parkinson inundated working away in a small cabin surrounded by hundreds of specimens. He was expected to record everything collected by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander and worked hard to keep up with the huge volume taking sketches of each item, with hastily scribbled notes about the colours he would fill in later.
Parkinson did complete finished watercolours on this expedition but it was the drawings which would later prove to be invaluable reference material. Parkinson died during the course of the voyage in 1771. It was on the basis of these drawings that finished watercolours were able to be completed later in London by illustrators such as Frederick Nodder, John Cleveley, John Frederick Miller and James Miller.3
Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826), who served as a natural history artist on Matthew Flinders's circumnavigation of Australia on the Investigator (1801-1803), adopted the third strategy of recording details of plant specimens by developing three colour charts during his lifetime.4 This system of recording involved a 'drawing by numbers' process in order to quickly and efficiently document the vast array of plant and animal life in the field. Bauer would do outline drawings and describe the subject's colour in an abbreviated form using this colour coded numbering system. Each number on the sketch corresponded to a number on one of his grided colouring charts.
By the time of the Investigator voyage, Bauer had developed a complex code system with numbers nearly up to 1000. Bauer's system of recording was so sophisticated that he was able to produce many years later in London and Vienna 'finished watercolours, very much in the same way in which it is possible in photography to produce prints from an existing negative at any time.'5 Unlike Parkinson, fortunately Bauer was able to oversee the completion of a few of his works for publication. Using his drawings as reference material, Bauer was printmaker and colourist giving him greater control over the finished work, such as the magnificent publication Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae, 1813.
Two hundred years later, Celia Rosser has continued the high standards set by Bauer and Parkinson. In 1974 Rosser was appointed Monash University Botanical Artist where she spent the next twenty-five years recording all species of Banksia. These efforts resulted in the publication of a three volume monograph The Banksias.6 The final volume, Volume III, was printed in 2000 and represented the first time that such a comprehensive study of a genus had been illustrated.7 Such is nature that in the spring of 2001, a new species of Banksia was discovered.
Botanists, whilst on a field trip to the Kirkalocka Station in the Mt Magnet area of Western Australia, located a previously unidentified Banksia. Rosser, upon hearing about this discovery, arranged for plant samples to be sent to her for recording. However, due to the arid conditions, the Banksia had not recently flowered and its original colour was not identifiable. During this period, and unbeknownst to Rosser, the newly discovered Banksia was named in her honour as Banksia rosserae, in recognition of her contribution to the field of botany.8
In 2006, a cyclone hit the Western Australian region of Mount Magnet area in Western Australia and Kirkalocka Station was cut off by flood waters and marooned in the desert for six weeks. After the waters subsided, botanists returned to the area and saw Banksia rosserae in flower. Rosser was contacted and she arrived to document the plant in situ. Whilst there, Rosser observed only two flowering plants. She describes the buds as green and as the flower matures it opens out to the size of a tennis ball and is bright yellow. According to Rosser, it was a miracle Banksia rosserae flowered during her lifetime so she could record it.9
This example highlights the important role Rosser had working in collaboration with botanists documenting Banksia rosserae. Although photography may help inform botanical work, botanical illustration can produce the fine details and nuances in plants not captured in a photograph. In addition, the composition can be manipulated and features of the plant displayed together which are not seen simultaneously in nature.
Anita Barley, Dianne Emery and Mali Moir represent part of the next generation of botanical illustrators in Australia to follow on from Rosser, and each artist has adapted their own methods of recording and documentation in order to manage issues of time. Barley, for example, began Telopea speciosissima T. 'Shady Lady,' T. 'Wirrimbirra White' in late 2006 in Victoria when the drought was most severe. As a consequence, she had difficulty obtaining good quality specimens to illustrate.
Barley spends a lot of time drawing and recording as much information as possible, and as quickly as possible, prior to beginning the watercolour. This part of the process is important as she carefully checks and studies the plant's characteristics so they meet the exacting standards required by botanists. For Barley, drawing is like a map, it has to be accurate or the illustration will not work and once the original plant material has died it continues to inform the illustration.
It took six weeks for Emery to record the ephemeral nature of Paeonia suffruticosa 'Rimpo.' The flower, once picked, lasts only for four days. Working in the studio, Emery did no preliminary drawings, instead she worked directly onto paper painting two petals a week using a dry brush technique. This technique is like drawing with watercolour; it involves using a tiny brush with a small amount of pigment and drawing fine vertical lines onto dry paper, each stroke blending in imperceptibly with the next.
This method allows the artist a lot of control over the medium producing incredible detail and wonderful textures such as the soft, feathery lines and striations through the petals. In doing so, Emery is able to capture the ephemeral nature of the flower not so easily replicated in photography.
Mali Moir chose the Sacred Lotus, Nelumbo nucifera 'Holy Fire,' because of its beauty and symbolic associations with ancient cultures. The beauty of the flower is at odds with the muddy swampy conditions it grows so well in. The plant is dormant in winter and Moir closely monitored the plants in spring to obtain the best blooms. She travelled to a specialist grower in country Victoria to work en plein air.
Moir had to work quickly because, firstly, a single bloom lasts three days and, secondly, the bloom opens in the morning and closes towards evening. This was the first time she had painted most of the work in situ with the finer details completed later in the studio. Moir spent time observing the plants, choosing the best natural composition, drawing, photographing and using watercolour on paper, where she painstakingly recorded all the venations to achieve the transcendent beauty of the bloom.
The methods and processes of recording by each of these artists demonstrate botanical illustration requires exceptional skills of observation to deal with the longevity of the plant. What is 'seen' by the naked eye is not sufficient enough. What is required is a thorough understanding of the plant's biology, environment and social conditions to convey how nature is viewed and understood.
Notes
1 Walter H Lack, & Victoria Ib￡nﾽz, Recording Colour in Late Eighteenth Century Botanical Drawings: Sydney Parkinson, Ferdinand Bauer and Thadd￤us Haenke, Curtiss Botanical Magazine, vol. 14, part 2, May 1997, p. 87.
2 Lack & Ib￡nﾽz, p. 89.
3 Helen Hewson, 300 Years of Botanical Illustration (Collingwood Vic: CSIRO Publishing 1999), p. 29.
4 The first colour chart is the only one known to be in existence today and is located in the archive of the Real Jard￭n Bot￡nico in Madrid.
5 In Lack's paper, 'Recording Form in Early Nineteenth Century Botanical Drawing, Ferdinand Bauer's 'Cameras', Curtis's Botanical Magazine, vol. 15, part 4, November 1998, he examines the idea that Bauer might possibly have used a camera lucida for the pencil drawings.
6 Alex George, C E Rosser, The Banksias (Melbourne: Monash University, vols 1 (1981), II (1988) III (2000)
7 Shirley Sherwood, A Passion For Plants; Contemporary Botanical Masterworks (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2003), p. 174.
8 P M Olde & N R Marriot, 'One new Banksia and two new Grevillea species (Proteaceae: Grevilleoideae) from Western Australia,' Nuytsia 15 vol. 1, 2002, pp. 85-99.
9 Telephone interview with Celia Rosser, 20 June 2008. |
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