Part one of a two-part series of tree paintings. Today we feature female painters and then on Monday it’s the men. The aim is to show comparative renderings of these spectacular plants by some of the most renowned female artists ever. Although we have numbered them, this is not a rank, just a way to …
Beautiful old botanical paintings of cacti today from the book: “Iconographie descriptive des cactees, ou, Essais systematiques et raisonnes sur l’histoire naturelle, la classification et la culture des plantes de cette famille“. Which translates (roughly) to: Featured iconography cacti, or systematic and reasoned essays on natural history, classification and cultivation of plants in this family. …
Cherry blossom festivals are soon to get underway all over the northern hemisphere. In some places they are small events, in others much bigger affairs. The more cherry trees in an urban area often denotes the likelihood of a festival. In essence, the purpose of these festivals, adopted from Japanese culture, is to celebrate feelings …
Chris Ofili lives and works in Barbados and Trinidad. The photographed plant segments below are taken from his thrilling artworks currently on show at Victoria Miro, London.
On the first floor of the V&A is a corridor full of stained glass. It illustrates the art of the glazier and glass painter from the middle of the 12th Century to the present day. Whole plants and plant motifs appear frequently in the detail. Creations found in the V&A must be an endless source of …
The white lily has got to be up there as one of the most popular plants to be rendered in Western art. Over many centuries the main provider of these floral depictions has been paintings of The Annunciation; the Christian and Catholic celebration of archangel Gabriel’s announcement to the Virgin Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus. The majority …
The South Asia section of the Victoria and Albert museum is awash with plant patterns. If you are looking for a large amount of inspiration in one place, or you just want to plagiarise – everything a few centuries too old to be in copyright – then head here. Textiles, paintings, sculpture and more hang inside huge …
In general, we either tend to be plant people or animal people. Sometimes, the more holistic and evolved among us, are both. Artist Ann Marshall, in her Biophilia series, has surrounded some magical looking animals with some mystically lit plants, collectively resulting in something much more. In addition, she produced some detailed botanical work as …
Brooklyn based artist Eddie Perrote captures the essence and life-force of plants in his expressive, bright, chromatic Stoney Point Flowers series. In Vegetables and Cooking he mixes colour, lines and chaos to fun effect. Artist’s website Stoney Point Flowers is a cut and dried flower wholesaler located in the beautiful countryside of southwestern Wisconsin. For …
The plant-inspired backgrounds to Kehinde Wiley’s (b.1977) portraits are decorative devices to displace the subject from their expected environment. This helps us lose some of our preconceptions, allowing us to see better. Plants being plants, they do a whole lot more than that. They play with stereotypes of young black male masculinity and sensitivity, highlight …