I have spent the last two days in the garden tending to roses, planting some ground covers, and enjoying the chance to be outside in perfect sunny and warm weather. I think if I had been born in the Victorian era, I would have been drawn to botanical illustration. I find this medium captivating and beautiful. Someone once said, “Draw what you love” and this would certainly have fit with my preference.
This is a book I was lucky to find in a used book store for a nominal fee. It is a gem of a book with heavy paper, beautiful, breathtaking illustrations and pages edged with gold. It features a collection of women who drew flowers and botanical illustration for books and other publications. For many women, it was their only creative outlet. Many thrived artistically with this medium.
The majority of women featured in this book lived and worked in England, but the one I want to feature was American. She lived from 1842-1908 and her name was Emma Homan Thayer. She was educated at Rutgers College In New York, and studied figure painting. When she moved to Colorado in 1882 with her husband, she was fascinated with the beauty of the region and wildflowers and started painting them. She published a book titled Wild Flowers of the Pacific Coast in 1887, and in this described her love of wild beauty.
“In the places most difficult to access I found the most beautiful flowers. It would seem as if they wished to hide the delicate members of their family from the rude gaze of the world, sheltered in some nook of the rocks. Like a miniature conservatory tenderly cared for by the fairies of the mountains.”
What I think is even more remarkable is that she was “a seasoned traveler and adventurer” and not afraid to venture into the mountains and remote places to look for specimans to study, “often endangering her own life to capture the ideal specimen for study.”
Emma was just one of many that pursued the expression of flowers as artistic endeavor. Many were privileged, others disasvantaged, the majority obscure or not remembered in the history of art. This book helps to revive one’s awareness as well as give readers’ a chance to view some of the most beautiful illustrations beyond our own gardens or meadows.
Pages 174-177 by Jack Kramer, Copyright 1996
That does look like a lovely book. I’m always drawn to flowers, both in the garden and wild, as inspiration.
Lovely!