Martyn Rix

An opulent book, with reproductions of paintings of Indian botanical specimens from three centuries of 'Company', i.e. British era, botanical collections. The paintings are supported by short biographical sketches of such eminent figures as Royle, Gamble, Hooker, Roxburgh, Wallich, Buchanan-Hamilton, and a host of others, and credits to the names of such Indian artists as were recorded on the plates. A bit of a splurge, but a beautiful addition to the library of any lover of Indian botany and art.… (altro)

This was much heavier going than I thought it was going to be. There is a lot of detail in there. Maybe too much. At times I felt I was working my way through Deuteronomy. But one has to hand it to Martyn. He is thorough. We are treated to a comprehensive overview of the history of botanical painting with a careful selection of pictures to illustrate the history.
Martyn, incidentally, makes the point that botanical painting ...or more especially the publishing of works was heavily dependent upon the technology. Until reading this book, I had not appreciated the interdependency of the artists and technicians. An artist might do an original pencil sketch, which might be turned into a watercolour painting by the artist or by somebody else, then somebody else turned it into a woodcut or an engraving which was printed by another person and might be hand-coloured by the original artist or by the printer or by a third party. So there were multiple steps along the way for things to go wrong or go off-track. If the engraver was not highly skilled as a technician and as an artist one might end up with a poor reflection of the original art.
Frequently, the artists had to work with dried and pressed samples...and I certainly don't envy them in this work.
Something else came though very clearly and that was the toughness and sense of adventure of most of these early botanists who travelled into unknown and frequently dangerous parts of the world simply to collect plants. In fact, many of them seemed to die on the job, as a result of diseases such as cholera, plague or yellow fever. Many of them seemed to labour for years in jungles or other unpleasant environments, only to lose their collections in shipwrecks or to be be seized as spoil when they were apprehended by some of the other great powers of the time (French, Dutch, British, Portuguese, Spanish) and held to ransom. A fair percentage of these prolific and talented painters seem to have ended up in rather poor circumstances. One exception was Alexander von Humbolt who seemed to have the wit and resources to mange his trips fairly well. He seemed to escape the vicissitudes that many of the other collectors suffered.
Rix also gave me a much greater appreciation of the important role played by some sponsors such as Joseph Banks. In fact, Banks seemed to pop up everywhere. Clearly, he was a very important collector and supporter of botanists in and around the early part of the 19th Century. I also remember reading about Joseph Dalton Hooker when I was at Uni studying Botany....as I recall in a book titled "The Taxonomy of Vascular Plants by G Lawrence. (At Least I assume that it was Joseph because his father was also a famous Botanist and director of Kew Gardens. Clearly , the two Hookers made an incredible contribution to Botany). Joseph made some collecting expeditions to India and the Himalayas. Joseph was the friend of Charles Darwin who urged him to publish his "Origin of Species".
Sometimes I found it a bit hard to link the illustrations with the text that was on the current or adjoining page. But generally that was a minor issue. Rix has been very thorough in his descriptions such as: "Victoria regis. Hand-coloured lithograph by P.Gauchi after a painting by Robert Schomburgk for Notice of Victoria regia (1937) by John Lindley". Something else struck me and that was the international nature of the field of botany and the degree of cooperation that seemed to exist around the world with many collectors partnering up to visit remote areas of the world. And frequently post humously, publishing the works.......apparently giving credit where it was due to the original collectors, craftspeople etc. I have recently been studying the work of Ferdinand Bauer ...especially his technique of "painting by a numbered palate. Having been able to compare the work of other painters makes me appreciate the quality of Bauer's work even more.
One other thing came through fairly clearly, and that was the focus ....especially up until the late 1800's.... appears to have been just on collecting and filling out the number of described species. Only, very late in the day did more systematic monographs on particular species or families start to emerge. I guess all the later work built on the earlier descriptive work.
A bit tedious in parts but overall a magnificent work of art and scholarship. Five stars from me.… (altro)