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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Botanical illustration | 9/11 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botanical_illustration | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T10:43:35.237685+00:00 | kb-cron |
Iwasaki Tsunemasa had already started publishing Honzō Zufu (Iconographia Plantarum or Diagrams and Chronicles of Botany) a woodblock illustrated work (1828–1921). In the 1870s, Leopold Kny created a series of large, detailed botanical wall charts (Botanische Wandtafeln). These charts depicted various plant structures, including roots, flowers, and leaves, in great detail and at a large scale, making them useful for teaching botany in classrooms. Teachers could also use Robert and Reinhold Brendel's papier-mâché models (For more details, see Wikipedia in French: Modèles Brendel, or in German: Robert Brendel (Modellbauer)). Deyrolle also published wall charts (planches didactiques). After several expeditions to South and Central America, Jean Jules Linden made a detailed study of orchid growth conditions in their natural habitat. His findings revolutionised the cultivation of orchids under European conditions. Upon his return to Belgium, he became a prominent commercial orchid grower. Linden published exceptional books on orchids and their cultivation, commissioning leading botanical illustrators to create a number of chromolithographs. His Iconographie des Orchidées (17 volumes, 1885–1903) is monumental. Many of the plates in the first series and all of the plates in the second series were executed by the noted botanical illustrator Walter Hood Fitch, called by Blunt & Stearn "the most outstanding botanical artist of his day in Europe". Fitch was the preferred artist of eminent British botanist William Jackson Hooker, the first director of Kew Gardens. His publishing career lasted at least from 1851 to 1880. Fitch also illustrated Henry John Elwes's Monograph of the Genus Lilium (1880), while his comprehensive The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland (1906–1913), with Augustine Henry, seems to contain primarily photogravures, but their author is not specified. Botanical illustration took a new direction with the rise of Art Nouveau, which was popular between 1890 and 1910. Art Nouveau artists included Eugène Grasset, whose publication Plants and Their Application to Ornament (1896) emphasized the importance of studying natural forms in art . His student, Maurice Pillard Verneuil, wrote Etude de la plante : son application aux industries d'art (1903), which featured real, detailed botanical plates. Another significant figure was Anton Seder, though he is best remembered for his more stylized designs. Particularly noteworthy were the artists of the École de Nancy—including Louis Majorelle, Émile Gallé, and the Daum glassworks—who drew inspiration from the natural flora of the Lorraine region. Despite their regional focus, these artists, like others in the Art Nouveau movement, often popularized exotic plant forms such as orchids. One of the most botanically inclined among them may have been Henri Bergé, a decorator for Daum, who produced many hand-painted botanical plates for the Encyclopédie florale (1895–1930), now preserved at the Musée de l'École de Nancy". These plates served as a source of inspiration for Daum's artisans, who were trained to imitate and incorporate these natural forms into their work.