| Fresh Cut features the botanical
work of fifty-two artists from the United States as well as India,
Canada, England and Australia. The exhibit will be open through
October 2, 2005.
The Botanical Art Tradition
The art of botanical illustration has been practiced since antiquity,
with plants appearing decoratively and for cultural significance
in Egyptian tombs, on vases and sculpture and in ancient Roman mosaics
and paintings. In medieval times herbalists illustrated medicinal
plants, detailing their curative powers. The Renaissance saw the
birth of botanical realism with masters such as Leonardo da Vinci
and Albrecht Durer producing extraordinary drawings and paintings
of plant subjects. These served the needs of art and science, combining
exacting realism with an aesthetic understanding of the plant.
In the Age of Exploration, as new worlds were discovered, the botanical
artist was an irreplaceable part of every expedition, providing
documentation of entire families of plants. On returning home, these
artists used their field sketches and painstakingly prepared herbarium
sheets to create hugely popular monographs that cataloged the sights
of exciting tours, enabling scientists and laypersons alike to relive
the journey.
A Contemporary Renaissance in Botanical Art
The contemporary botanical artist builds on these traditions to
produce images seamlessly blending old and new, scientific facts
with aesthetics, resulting in works that bloom gracefully and endlessly.
It takes a trained eye and much skill to produce a rendering of
a plant that not only reproduces the reality of the plant in structure
and form, but illuminates the grace, textures and details that inform
and delight the viewer.
Fresh Cuts
The paintings and drawings in this exhibit were selected from 300
slides from 107 artists from nearly every continent. The artworks
were selected by jurors who judged the work based on accuracy, aesthetics
and technical qualities. From the delicate vining Bittersweet, a
watercolor on vellum by Kate Nessler, to Martha Kemp’s graphite
illustration of three trout lilies, the exhibit includes a diverse
collection of plants in a wide variety of media.
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