Notes on Botanical Illustration
A Bit About Botanical Illustration
“The first goal of drawing is to create the illusion of reality, that is, to show 3 dimensions on a 2 dimensional surface.”
WAIT - can that be right? How about sketches to remember something? How about self-expression? How about conveying the beauty of the world? How about inspiring an emotional reaction within the viewer? How about being deliberately shocking? How about making something utterly original, never done before? How about abstraction and how about design?
Hmpf.
When I first began looking at art, as a sophomore in the Student Union of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I was taken – dazzled! – by the paintings of Aaron Bohrod, a faculty member. He made trompe l’oeil (fool-the-eye) paintings, and they did! Marvelous paintings of bulletin boards with notes pinned on. Windows with scenes outside. Paintings with frames of worm-eaten hand-carved wood, the frame painted on flat panel along with the painting, which appeared recessed but wasn’t. Totally convincing.
Bohrod was old-fashioned by the time I saw his work. He had been a young artist in the 1930s, influenced by John Sloan, and had a good life as a social realist and regionalist painter. He turned to trompe l’oeil in the 1950s and took a position at UW, in time for me to see his work. Wikipedia has a good article on him.
The other kind of painting available for me to see at that time was abstract expressionism, in the style of frantic students trying to impress their teachers. They were bad, I could see that. It took me years to get over that first impression, and give abstraction another chance.
By the time I started painting, abstract expressionism was out and conceptual art was at its peak, so there was nothing visual to deter me from admiring the Renaissance artists who strove for trompe l’oeil, and their descendants like Bohrod. I wanted to be able to do that.
Botanical illustration is not exactly trompe l’oeil. The more exactly the painting is like the original plant subject, the more satisfying it is, and also there’s an expectation of artistic composition or design inside the frame. But overriding these is an assumption of scientific accuracy in representing plant parts and patterns of growth. Botanical illustration shades over into teaching, and intends to be part of scientific learning.
Here are some of my attempts at botanical illustration. They’re not perfect; ultimately, I’m too impatient to be perfect. “Mesquite and Its Life” took me two months of daily work….I prefer faster outcomes. But then again, some topics require this kind of care, and I’m glad I learned this much of how.
