South African artist Daniella Mooney (b.1986) paints plants, which is not that surprising considering she lives and works in Cape Town, giving her access to one of the six recognised floral kingdoms of the world, not to mention Kirstenbosch, a national botanical garden with around 22,000 indigenous species. Cape Town, a place of exceptional beauty, …
Ode to Trees by Herman Hesse (1920) For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of …
The impact of artistry in delivering a message that you want heard has been illuminated by the current V&A exhibition Disobedient Objects, which explores how grassroots movements have inventively used objects and design to further their cause. The project SPUDS, advocating sustainable potato production in Ireland, is another example of creative endeavour. To help get …
Bluebonnets at Twilight, near San Antonio – Robert Julian Onderdonk, 1919-1920 True blue plants have a natural allure due to their rarity. Landscapes dominated by these blue plants are even rarer, yet because we have Bluebells in the UK, are also somewhat familiar. There are relatively few plants that bear truly blue flowers – Gentian, Lupin, Monkshood, …
Self Portrait by Christian Schad (1927) Having a narcissus flower staring you in the face can only really mean one thing – you’re a vain so and so. Not that the flower symbolism in Christian Schad’s Self-Portrait is really needed, as the artist’s obsession with showing off his chest in a see-through top, rather than …
If you haven’t the time to make your own Christmas cards this year, and you want something more original for your loved ones than is available on the high street, then crafting sites like Etsy are the place to shop. Millions of individuals with artistic persuasions are selling homemade cards to buy. All sorts of …
The variety of plant life, along with hiking trails and sunshine, is one reason enough to visit La Palma in the Canary Islands. To start with there is the abundance of bananas, with the island home to many banana farmers. You see them growing everywhere. For some, this is a travesty, a dominating monoculture that …
Today, to buy an original Tiffany lamp, you will need to pay anything from a couple of thousand to over a million pounds. Reinforcing our belief that botanical is always best, the lamps that are more in demand today are the brighter coloured floral ones that became iconic emblems of the Art Nouveau movement. The original Tiffany lamps …
At the Horst: Photographer of Style exhibition currently running at the V & A, in among the glamour shots taken for Vogue and House and Garden, you will find a small section of black and white photographs drawn from nature the artist took in 1946. The full extent of these works can be found in Horst’s book Patterns from Nature, Plants …
Lewisham born Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) illustrated a number of well-known children’s books in the early 1900s, including Aesop’s Fables, Gulliver’s Travels and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. His work became intrinsically linked to the stories, with abiding memories based on the visuals he created. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J. M. Barrie was published in 1906 and …