Medieval to Renaissance: The Evolution of Botanical Illustration

Course description

This course surveys the astonishing historical range and visual diversity of the art of depicting flowers and other plants in paintings, prints and drawings. From early times through the Medieval and the Renaissance, plants have been an important theme for artists and illustrators in Europe, the Americas and the East. We will explore this fascinating history from early rather stiff and unnatural illustrations of medieval herbals and codices into the 18th Century when the Linnaean style of drawing brought a more accurate and clinical portrayal of plants inspiring what came to be known as the ‘golden period’ of botanical illustration.