Blooming Art! Botanical Art Versus Flower Painting

This lecture by art historian Catherine Wallace surveys the many different approaches to depicting the flower and looks at the distinction made between botanical art and flower painting.

Botanical art is seen as an extension of the science of botany and accurately recording different species of plant as its main purpose.  Botanical illustration was at its zenith in the Netherlands between the 17th century and 18th centuries and the “Tulip wars” created a mania for painting the many variants of this spring bulb. 

In the 19th century, the Impressionists artists such as Henri Fantin-Latour (1836 – 1904) and Claude Monet in France made painterly studies of flowers both as still lifes and on location in gardens. This continued with Post - Impressionists such as Vincent Van Gogh who made his famous studies of sunflowers and irises. With the expansion of Britain’s Empire in the mid 19th botanical artists became explorers, the most famous being Marianne North (1830 – 1890). We look at just some of her studies of exotic plants she saw on her travels. 

This lecture then includes modern British artists such as Cedric Morris (1889 – 1982) and Stanley Spencer RA (1891 – 1959) and their paintings of flowers and ends with a selection of contemporary botanical painters. 

Talk by Catherine Wallace

Image: Summer Flowers, 1880 by Fantin-Latour

Age Guidance: 18+

Blooming Art! Botanical Art Versus Flower Painting

Thursday 25th February 2.30pm

Tickets: £13.00

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