Sketch Book for the Artist

PLANTS

AND

GARDENS

Botanical Studies

THE SCIENTIFIC VALUE OF A BOTANICAL DRAWING lies in its

subtle union of beauty, detail, and meticulous precision. Each

plant must be clearly distinguished from its closest relative.

Botanical art conceals the challenge of its making. Behind

detailed, measured drawings, such as we see here in Bauer's

Protea nitida, were specimens that often refused to stay still,

opening and closing in the warmth and light of the studio,

or that were diseased, insect-ravaged, and wilted. With bright

optimism, Stella Ross-Craig said of the need to draw from a

dried herbarium plant "I could make it live again." Her slipper

orchid shows that botanical drawing must often resolve the

challenge of its subject's producing parts in different seasons

—roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruit, and seeds conventionally

appear on one plate. The rest of us are free to draw as we

wish. Here, Mackintosh expresses the folded petals of a

broken rose bud so delicately we can sense the perfume.

FRANZ BAUER

An Austrian artist who trained at

the Schonbrunn Imperial Gardens

in Vienna. Sir Joseph Banks, naturalist

explorer and advisor to King George

III invited Bauer to London in 1790.

The King was then establishing the

Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew,

and Franz Bauer and his brother

Ferdinand were employed there to

draw specimens. They are counted

among the most accomplished

18th-century botanical artists.

Outline Bauer prepared a pencil outline

before laying in fleshy succulent hues and

tones of watercolor. Light in this drawing is

given by the paleness of the paper showing

between washes of darker tones.

Dissections Across the lower part of this

drawing we can see dissections of seed pods

and petals. It is likely Bauer would have

studied these under a microscope. He has

made the spatial and physical relationships

in this drawing all the more real by placing

a single, delicate, petal tip over a lower leaf

Protea nitida

1796

201 / 4 x 141 / 4 in (513 x 362 mm)

FRANZ BAUER