The market for botanical art fluctuates; subjects, artists, and colors go in and out of vogue.  Times change popular perspectives and dictate the purchases of even the most sophisticated consumer. However, it is my belief, that a fabulous botanical print never goes of out of style. Nature is a wild and beautiful beast and these drawings characterize each specimen in all their natural splendor from the root to each delicately blossomed tip. Herbs, flowers, vegetables, and exotic plants can be shown in all their full, untainted and virgin glory.  A home can be brightened year round with such a feat of artistry even in the doldrums of the darkest winter.

Pierre Joseph Redoute, Basilius Besler, and Dr. Robert John Thornton are celebrated artists of the botanical variety. These men were amongst the first to catalogue the endless assortment of natural flora specimens. No matter the climate, these organic life forms would come to fruition and eternal life in the form of hand drawn reproductions.  Botanical prints are the physical representation of the temporary, the impermanent, and the transitory. They represent the beauty of what is perhaps so special because of its mystery and its fleeting  nature. Because of the fact that is is here today and yet may be withered and weary tomorrow.  Because it may make you realize your own precious delicate humanity and in that ephemeral, symbiotic relationship, you see the eye of all that make us mortal beings.

“If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?”
-Khalil Gibran

Courtesy of Antiquariat Reinhold Berg, New York Times, Picturing Plants, Rare Maps