One of the most magical, evocative, botanical artworks ever created? Matisse’s Trivaux Pond (1916/17) was painted in a public park on the outskirts of Paris and not as you might expect in wilder environs. You need to look closely to work out the location of the water, using the reflected vegetation as a guide. Currently on …
Primavera (springtime) was painted in Renaissance Italy around 1480 by the artist Sandro Botticelli. It’s quite a large piece, almost life size, measuring 2.03m by 3.14m. If you want to view in person, you will need to visit the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. If that’s not possible, a high resolution digital image (above) is …
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was a German zoologist, philosopher, professor, physician, naturalist, biologist, writer and natural history artist. So somewhat of an overachiever then. He is on record for having done lots of significant things, like discovering over a thousand new species, coining the term ecology and selling Darwin’s theory of evolution to Germany and the …
Poverty, madness and creative genius, unfortunately often makes for a good story, which is why Plant Curator is keen to see the 2008 film Séraphine. Based on the life of French artist Séraphine de Senlis (1864–1942), it gives an account of her rather sad but artistically productive life. Born into a poor family of labourers and …
Usually you can see Sir John Everett Millais’ Ophelia at Tate Britain, but it was recently loaned out to Japan and now is in Turin, after that maybe somewhere else. It is good to share. For most interested people around the globe a digital or printed image is all that they are ever likely to …
The Tree of Life, Stoclet Freize by Gustav Klimt was completed in 1909 Gustav Klimt (1862 – 1918) produced some rather desirable artworks. Two of his paintings appear in the top 20 most expensive paintings of all time (coming in at 6th and 19th respectively). His life can be summarised as follows – Austrian born, famous …