| | Contents
| This theme includes example sections and will be revised and added to as we proceed. Suggestions for additions, improvements and the correction of factual errors are always appreciated.
Status: Collect > Document > Analyse > Improve |
19th century botany
747.01 Scientific > 19th century botany
                                    
747.02 Scientific > Photomicrographs of botany
   
Flowers
747.03 Scientific > Flowers
There are three distinct strands of flower still life photography - one is the artistic trend of seeing flowers as intrinsically beautiful, the second sees them as a stimulus to design creativity and the third sees them as objects of science.
- Intrinsically beautiful
Set piece photographs that are reminiscent of the flower, fruit and vegetable paintings of the Dutch masters Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-1684), Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) and Jan van Huysum (1682-1749) and were created as ornamental studies.
- Roger Fenton (1819-1869), well known for his photographs of the Crimean War, took studies of fruit and flowers with sensitivity and astounding detail.
- Charles Hippolyte Aubry (1811-1877) with his studies of flowers and leaves.
- Edward Weston (1886-1956) reveled in the sensuous curves of a cabbage leaf and the smooth shapes of strangely contorted bell peppers.
- Charles Jones piled up vegetables to create patterns in a multitude of shapes.
- Design creativity
Creative artists continually seek inspiration and nature provides it in abundance. Adolphe Braun worked in textile design and Karl Blossfeldt in an iron works but both of them saw how the photography of natural forms could inspire artists.
- Adolphe Braun (ca.1811-1877) produced over 300 studies of flowers to provide thought provoking examples to stimulate artists, graphic designers and textile designers.
- Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1952) Primarily took his detailed photographs of plants to serve as illustrative examples for designers.
- Science
The botanical illustrators such as Georg Dionysius Ehret (German Painter and Illustrator, 1710-1770) or Pierre-Joseph Redoute (Flemish-born French Painter, 1759-1840) completed their work to further scientific analysis and aid comparative classification. Soon after the invention of photography in the mid-nineteenth century scientists appreciated its ability to capture a permanent record of botanical samples that could be used as reference works for comparative analysis. The object was not so much to provide an artistic study but rather a facsimile of the plant.
- The nineteenth century amateur botanist Anna Atkins (1799-1871) used the cyanotype process to create startling blue images of specimens of British algae.
- Franz de Paula Antoine (1815-1886) worked his way up as a gardener at the Royal Parks of Vienna becoming court gardener in 1841 and director of the court gardens in 1865. He took photographs of plants to illustrate his books and further scientific research.
In the early scientific still life photographs of plants all surrounding details are irrelevant as they distract from the single object under study.
Anna Atkins
747.04 Scientific > Anna Atkins: Photographs of British Algae
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
     
747.05 Scientific > Anna Atkins: British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
   
Henry Fox Talbot
747.06 Scientific > William Henry Fox Talbot: Botany
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
        
747.07 Scientific > Henry Fox Talbot: The Bertoloni Album
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
  
Adolphe Braun
747.08 Scientific > Adolphe Braun: Flower studies
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
 
Karl Blossfeldt
747.09 Scientific > Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1952)
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
   
Early in his working life the German photographer Karl Blossfeldt worked as a sculptor in iron foundries but he became interested in the relationships between natural forms and decorative art - an endeavor that was supported by the Prussian government. From 1898 he taught at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Berlin and built up an archive of plant photographs each meticulously detailed and on a plain background to remove any distractions. In 1928 he published Urformen Der Kunst. Photographische Pflanzenbilder (Berlin) which has become one of the seminal photobooks.
747.10 Scientific > Karl Blossfeldt: Books
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
        
747.11 Scientific > Karl Blossfeldt‘s Original "Urformen der Kunst" / "Art Forms in Nature"
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
                                                                                                                       
The magnificent, modernist botanical studies of Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) were first published in his "Urformen der Kunst" in 1928. The work contains 120 single-sided rotary gravure plates, prefaced with an introductory text and list of plate subjects. (Although printed in 1928, the first edition apparently listed no date of publication on the title page.) A second edition of the work was published in 1929, containing the same images and text as the first edition. The 1929 edition was printed in Germany in German, American, English, and perhaps other national versions, which seem to differ only in the publisher‘s imprint and opening text. English printings of the 1929 edition were given the title "Art Forms in Nature".
While the 1929 second edition of "Urformen der Kunst" contains the same images as the first, these seem to have been printed from a different set of printing plates. Having had the opportunity to examine a copy cataloged as first edition from the Yale Library, along with American, German and British 1929 editions, the following differences were noted: First edition plates are neutal in tone, while those from the second edition have a slightly green tone. First edition plates are sometimes more "contrasty" than second edition plates (although this was not the case for all plates in the series) and first edition plates are often of slightly narrower dimensions. Along with these differences in dimension, plates from the two editions show a variety of differing printing flaws which indicate that each edition was printed from a different set of printing plates. In contrast, aside from small variations which probably stem from the nature of rotogravure printing, the three 1929 editions examined appeared identical in the dimensions, coloration, and imperfections of the plates. The photographs on plates 62 and 118 appear to have been rotated 180 degrees in the second edition.
A second work "Wundergarten der Natur" was published with a new set of 120 images in 1932. After Blossfeldt‘s death in 1932 a number of works were published with his images, which continue to the present day. A different "Urformen der Kunst" / "Art Forms in Nature" was published with 96 gravures in various editions circa 1935-1941, and a "Wunder in der Natur" with 120 gravures was printed circa 1942, during WWII in Leipzig.
This exhibition includes all 120 plates of the first version of "Urformen der Kunst," taken from the 1929 second edition (German and American printings). The gravures measure roughly 10.25 x 7.5 inches (26x19 cm) and are printed on sheets 12.25 x 9.5 inches (31x24 cm) with plate number printed in the lower right corner. Images illustrated in horizontal format have been rotated 90 degrees clockwise. Plate descriptions are transcribed from the American printing (E. Weythe, New York, 1929)
© Christopher Wahren - Christopher Wahren Fine Photographs - www.cwfp.biz
alan@luminous-lint.com |
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
Anna Atkins
Atkins, Anna, n.d.Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns, (Private publication) [Δ]
Atkins, Anna, 1843-1854, Photographs of British algae: cyanotype impressions, (Sevenoaks) [Private publication] [Δ]
Golding Bird
Bird, Golding, 1939, 20 April, ‘Fac-Simile of a Photogenic Drawing‘, Mirror, vol.XXXIII, no.945 [With reprint of Bird’s article in Magazine of Natural History] [Δ]
Bird, Golding, 1939, April, ‘Observations on the Application of Heliographic or Photogenic Drawing to Botanical Purposes‘, Magazine of Natural History, vol.n.s. 3, pp.188-92 [Δ]
Karl Blossfeldt
Blossfeldt, Karl, 1967, Urformen der Kunst, (Tübingen, Germany: Ernst Wasmuth Verlag) [Δ]
Blossfeldt, Karl, 1998, Natural Art Forms: 120 Classic Photographs, (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications) [Δ]
William Copeland McCalla
McCalla, William Copeland, 1920, Wild Flowers of Western Canada, (Toronto: Musson Book Co) [With sixty plates from original photographs by the author] [Δ]
Joel Meyerowitz
Meyerowitz, Joel, 1983, Wild Flowers, (Boston: New Graphic Society) [Δ]
George S. Penney
Penny, George S., 1873, ‘Pigment Printing Applied to Botanical Specimens, &c.‘, BJPA, pp.74-76 [Δ]
Henry Fox Talbot
Daniel, Malcolm, 1992, ‘L’Album Bertolini‘, in Fotografia & Fotografi a Bologna, 1839-1900 [Δ]
Smith, Graham, 1993, ‘Talbot and Botany: The Bertolini Album‘, History of Photography, vol.17, no.1, pp.33-48 [Δ]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com
Franz de Paula Antoine (1815-1886) • Anna Atkins (1799-1871) • Tom Baril (1952-) • Golding Bird (1814-1854) • Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) • Adolphe Braun (1812-1877) • Cy DeCosse (1929-) • Harold Feinstein (1931-) • Hajicek & Panaro-Smith • James Hill • Caroline Hyman (1944-) • Charles Jones (1866-1959) • Edwin Hale Lincoln (1848-1938) • Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) • William Copeland McCalla (1872-1962) • Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) • Dain L. Tasker (1872-1964) • Ron van Dongen (1961-) | Home > Themes > Scientific > Botany
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| Anna Atkins
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (October 9, 2010) |  | Caroline Hyman: Botanicals
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (December 27, 2007) |  | Cy Decosse: Gioco di Luce / Play of the Light
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (February 11, 2007) |  | Flowers: A 19th Century perspective
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Improved (March 7, 2007) |  | Flowers: A Pictorialist perspective
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (February 23, 2007) |  | Flowers: Through the 20th Century
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Improved (May 16, 2007) |  | James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (December 14, 2007) |  | James Hill: The Flower Studies
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (June 7, 2007) | | Karl Blossfeldt‘s Original "Urformen der Kunst" / "Art Forms in Nature"
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (October 3, 2006) |  | Professor Albert Richards: X-rays of Flowers
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (April 16, 2010) |  | Ron van Dongen: Flora
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (February 13, 2007) | | Scientific: 19th Century Botany
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Released (November 27, 2010) |  | Still-life: Apples
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (February 9, 2009) |  | Still-life: Pears
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (December 23, 2007) | | Trees: A 19th Century perspective
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Improved (November 20, 2007) |  | Trees: A Pictorialist perspective
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Improved (November 20, 2007) |
Photographer
| | |  | Emma Schenson: Memorials of Linnaeus
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| | |  | Roger Kockaerts: Cyanotypes of Endangered plants
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Themes
| Nature: Flora: Ferns
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| | Nature: Flora: Flowers: A 19th century perspective
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| | Nature: Flora: Flowers: A 20th century perspective
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| | Nature: Flora: Flowers: A Pictorialist perspective
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| | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Dandelions
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| | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Orchids
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Peonies
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| | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Poppies
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Sunflowers
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Thistles
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Tulips
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Water lilies
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|  | Nature: Flora: Fruits
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|  | Nature: Flora: Fruits: Apples
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| | Nature: Flora: Fruits: Pears
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|  | Nature: Flora: Leaves
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|  | Nature: Flora: Succulents and cacti
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|  | Nature: Flora: Trees: A 19th century perspective
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|  | Nature: Flora: Trees: A 20th century perspective
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|  | Nature: Flora: Trees: A Pictorialist perspective
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| | Nature: Flora: Trees: Apple trees
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|  | Nature: Flora: Vegetables
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| | Scientific: Botany
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|  | Scientific: X-rays: Flowers
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|  | Smithsonian Institution: Field Book Project
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Techniques
 | Cyanotypes: Themes: Botany
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Still thinking about these...
 | The Cedars of Lebanon
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Refreshed: 17 May 2013, 20:06 |
