La Scarlatte is the name of Amsterdam based artist Pauline Teunissen’s one-woman design studio. Her work consists of detailed, elegant, hand-drawn designs inspired by nature. She creates individual artworks as well as surface patterns for product packaging and book covers. For inspiration she cycles over the canals of Amsterdam in search of hidden urban visual …

If you visit the newly re-hung Guildhall Art Gallery, you will find a painting by John Pearce sharing space with artworks by Rossetti and Millais. While these great artists have undoubtedly rendered plants to beautiful effect, you can only stand back and admire, whereas Pearce’s plants, always the main subject, draw the viewer into the scene and …

There is nothing as moving as a heartfelt song sung for a plant. That is why, Ombra mai fu, the opening aria from the 1738 opera Serse by George Frideric Handel, is probably the most popular number from any of his operas. Sung by the main character Xerxes I of Persia, the title translates from …