Garden Diary - May 2017

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May

Plant: Exploring the Botanical World

Monday, 20 June 2017

How long does a flower last?

If it has the common name of "daylily" - probably not very long.

In Japan, it is the very fragility, the ephemeral nature of
cherry blossoms that is cherished and appreciated.

The seasons turn in their cycle and we must wait until a flower's time comes again. Pressed, dried flowers are flattened from their living form, and also fade to monotones of beige and brown. How to preserve their beauty?

Some years ago I curated an exhibition in the William D. Rondina and Giovanni Foroni LoFaro Gallery at the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Garden on Buried Treasures: The Nature and Art of Bulbs. It was necessary for me to spend hour after hour in the rare book room, paging through historical volumes to find the images I wanted for the display. One book I knew I wanted to include was Carolus Clusius' Rariorum Plantarum Historia, published in 1601. I chose

from Historium Rariorum Plantarum of Carolus Clusius
courtesy of the LuEster T. Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Garden

this woodcut illustration of a tulip. Notice that the illustration presents the growing tulip in two different seasons, both in spring flower and later in growth cycle, with enhanced seeds and pod to present details, and also its underground bulb. Since the early 17th century time frame is pre-Linnaean, it is identified merely as "very early tulip." From the original woodcut to a 35mm film image, then scanned.

I made a visit to the Netherlands to do research for The American Gardener's World of Bulbs, my first book about bulbs. The friend with whom I was staying took me to the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. Which is where I saw Judith Leyster's painting of De Vroege Brabantsson tulip. Upon my explanation, request, and payment of a modest fee, I received a 35mm image of her painting. Which also I subsequently had scanned.

courtesy of Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, the Netherlands

De Vroege Brabantsson tulip, painting by Judith Leyster, 1643.

So many plants. Beautiful plants. Seasons turn and the flowers come and go in my own garden. I cannot grow everything. Some plants want it warmer / colder, wetter / drier, sunnier / shadier, different. Plants can be admired in pictures. Today, with smart phones, everyone is snap-shooting away. But a camera does not see what my eye / mind sees. An artist offers their impression, an interprtation of the flower. What is revealed, in display of the exquisite diversity of the natural world of plants. Come, let us explore.

Excerpted from Plant: Exploring the Botanical World
Phaidon Press Ltd. Copyright 2016.
Exploring the botanical world through the pages of Plant
not only takes us to foreign shores but travels through time.

Somehow the Phaidon editors managed to cull the options and possibilities to a modest 300 artworks. Modest I say, tongue firmly in cheek, because they offer everything from watercolors and electron micrograph scans to copperplate engravings, close-up photographs, seed packets and stone carvings. It is a weighty book with 352 pages, each 11 3/8 by 9 7/8 inches, that demands a slow review. You need not go page by page. I found it delightful to skip about, never quite sure what familiar plant or unknow beauty might be revealed. Sit at a table as you turn the pages - this is not a book to flip through one handed.

Here are a few images to provide an inkling of the wide time span, artists prehaps known to you and others sure to be unfamiliar, each offering a glimpse of the breadth and depth of illustrations presented in Plant. Fascinated with the images I looked for further information about some of the artists.