18th Century Botanical Art

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the exotic new plant species brought back from the many 18th century global scientific explorations created an interest by men and women in landscape gardening and gardening magazines. The author points out that the botanical illustrations originated as a help to Carolus Linnaeus' classification system, which greatly influenced the botanical art (also called linnaean art) of the era, and soon became very popular, appearing in garden magazines along with cultivation instructions and even as textile prints. The paper compares the similarities of the work of Claude Aubriet (1665-1742), the first botanical artist to be part of an expedition, with commercial textiles, noting that in both examples all the 'working parts' of the plants are depicted.

From the Paper:

"A president of the Royal Society subsequent to Sloane, Sir Joseph Banks, was one of the most powerful men in the British scientific community at the time, and he commissioned or caused to be published significant numbers of botanical illustrations that would have influenced both artists in other genres and the public, still hungry for information about exotic plants. Banks was also unofficial director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, giving him yet another platform from which to influence the public taste. Banks himself had sailed with Captain Cook on the first of Cook's voyages around the world in 1768."

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