Vintage floral image, taken from page 172 of 'Œuvres complètes de Jean Jacques Rousseau. Nouvelle édition, classée par ordre de matières'
Botanical Collections in ArtSTOR
ARTstor has hundreds of images depicting plants and flowers. The collections listed below are some of the collections that you can explore, as well as links to some search results.
Important: You will need to be logged into MyLSU to access the database results.
Books and E-books at LSU Library
Here are some examples of print books and e-books on the topic of plants in art. To find more, search for 'botanical illustration' or 'botanical artists' in the Online Catalog.
Picturing Plants by
Some of the most ravishing images in the history of illustration have been those of plants. But who drew plants, and why? How have these images reflected our changing relationship with the natural world? This beautifully illustrated book explores the purpose and function of the whole range of botanical art, from early woodcut herbals and painted florilegia, botanical treatises and records of new discoveries, to gardening manuals, seed catalogs, and field guides for the amateur enthusiast. Gill Saunders complements the sumptuous illustrations with detailed captions and an informative text, making this a book for both specialist and lay reader. Drawing on a rich archive of material in the Victoria and Albert Museum, much of it unpublished until now, Saunders presents works ranging from the fifteenth-century printed book to the art of contemporary illustrators. She includes acknowledged masters such as Ehret and Redout#65533; as well as lesser-known examples from China, Japan, and India. In addition to their intrinsic beauty, plant illustrations have mirrored the curious and fascinating relationship between art and science. The artist's challenge has been to reconcile the often conflicting demands of those disciplines within a single image. Picturing Plants captures both this complex cultural history and the distinctive loveliness of botanical illustration, bringing a fresh approach to a perennially fascinating subject.
Call Number: QK98.15 .S28 1995ISBN: 0520203062
The Golden Age of Flowers by
The 17th and 18th centuries saw a flowering of botanical illustration and witnessed the production of some of the greatest books of plant illustration ever produced, including such outstanding examples as the Hortus Eystettensis, the work of Maria Sybilla Merian, Thornton's Temple of Flora, Banks's Florilegium, and Sibthorpe's Flora Graeca. In this beautiful book, Celia Fisher has selected more than 100 of the most stunning flower images from this period, and each plant has its own brief biography, giving the context in which it was discovered and the personalities who first named and nurtured it. Many of the flowers in the book are now familiar, while others remain very exotic. Some of the illustrations are appealing for their naive delicacy but most have never been superseded in scientific accuracy, and they remain one of the best proofs of art and science as complementary disciplines.
Call Number: QK98.15 .F57 2013 (Special Collections)ISBN: 9780712358958
Useless Beauty by
"The story of Australian art does not begin and end with landscape. This book puts flowers front and centre, because they have often been ignored in preference for more masculine themes.Departing from where studies of single flower artists leave off, Useless Beauty embraces the general topic of flowers in Australian art and shines new light on a slice of Australian art history that extends from 1880 to 1950. It is the first book of broad chronology to discuss Australian art through blossoms, which it does by addressing stories of major figures including Hans Heysen, Margaret Preston and Sidney Nolan, as well as specific objects such as surreal flowers, Aboriginal flowers and war flowers.Whether modern or conservative, the artists in this study shared an intellectual and emotional passion for flora. This was true for men as well as women, despite blossoms being a more traditionally feminine subject.Through spectacular reproductions of historical and contemporary artworks drawn from collections in Australia, the United States, Britain and New Zealand, Useless Beauty explores how flowers influenced the psyche, governed rituals, defined identity and brought a psychological dimension to the everyday. The peak years for flower-centricity in Australian art were between 1920 and 1940 when flowers were known as the apotheosis of useless beauty."
ISBN: 9781443875486Publication Date: 2015-05-01
Flowers of the Amazon Forest by
Beautifully illustrates the botanical work of Marg aret Mee, the premier female explorer of the Brazilian rainforest, depicting many of the flower s she painted in her thirty years of expeditions to the Amazon.
Call Number: QK98.183 .M44 2006ISBN: 9781905377060
Art & Design Librarian
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