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 …
Cedric Morris (1889 – 1982) was a Welsh artist who painted plants – showy, colour drenched, often densely packed, floral arrangements. He was also a plantsman, cultivating a garden in Suffolk where he bred thousands of irises. His painting Iris Seedlings (1943) held by the Tate, no doubt inspired by the latter pursuit. He was …
American born Daniel Ridgway Knight (1839 – 1924) painted women outdoors surrounded by a diverse array of plants, many in flower, always beautiful. The women are interesting, but they are there of course to draw our attention to the main attraction. Tending The Garden Tending The Garden (detail) Spring Blossoms Picking Wildflowers The Rose Garden …
Below is a selection of plant-inspired cover designs from recent fiction releases by some inspired contemporary artists. Underneath those are more artworks, from older books, mostly non-fiction, taken from the fabulous Pinterest board of João Henriques. Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane, Hamish Hamilton. Cover by Stanley Donwood Weathering by Lucy Wood, Bloomsbury Publishing. Cover by Greg Heinimann The Betrayers by …
Botanical accuracy should always be our aim, but if we fall short, there’s no real shame in it, well, only a little. When someone corrects us it’s important to show humility and thank them. They will feel good. Mis-identifying plants is very common because it’s difficult to know the names of 350,000 flowering plants in the …
Fiona McIntyre is a painter, drawer and printmaker. Her uplifting painting Greenish Deep is currently on show as part of the group exhibition Arboretum at the Royal West of England Academy, now entering its final week. Much of her work focuses on plants, often using vivid colour and flow to depict their great vitality. Artist’s website I …
Daffodils are out in London. Let’s celebrate. Daffodils are the common name for plants in the genus Narcissus in the amaryllis (Amaryllidaceae) family. These two names are often used interchangeably, but in the UK we usually use daffodil to mean the completely yellow variety with the extended trumpet flower head. If you want to buy …