It will be presented by the Botanical Artists Association of South Africa’s Gauteng branch.

Botanical Art is a genre with a wide range of variations, but all the works are realistic and depict plants and plant parts that have to be identifiable by botanists. For centuries botanical artists have grappled with the demands of both art and science, and the greatest of them have been those who have found beauty in truth; they have understood the structure and function of plants, but at the same time have been passionate about their aesthetics.

Over time artists have used a wide variety of media to depict plants, and especially their flowers. Perhaps the earliest surviving florilegeum (ie catalogue of plants growing in a particular place) is to be found in a series of carvings of 275 plants on the walls of the Temple of Tuthmosis III at Karnak in Egypt, dating to 3,500 years ago. They are accompanied by the words “…all the plants that grow, all the goodly flowers that are in the Divine Land…”. “Herbals” (illustrated catalogues of plants used for medicinal purposes) were produced for centuries from about 2000 years ago, mostly containing line drawings. With the invention of the printing press, works with botanical illustrations have become common and since then botanical art as we now know it has flourished.

In the last fifteen years or so there has been a burgeoning of interest in Botanical Art throughout the world. Exhibitions and publications have multiplied and collectors have been presented with some wonderful works of art. Over the centuries South Africa has boasted a proud and distinguished record of botanical art, in large part as a result of our spectacularly varied and beautiful flora. In the past few decades we have been endowed with a large community of competent artists, and have produced a remarkable number of well-illustrated botanical books. So much so, that, eleven years ago, a small group of professional botanical artists started the Botanical Artists Association of South Africa (BAASA) and it has grown to have a membership of over 150 artists of varying degrees of experience and expertise, but with a consistently high degree of enthusiasm and passion.

South African Botanical Art: Peeling Back the Petals, edited by Marion Arnold, is the most recent work to tackle this subject. Through the book runs a deep concern that our flora is facing many threats, and that there have already been a number of extinctions. Sometimes botanical paintings are the only records of the existence of plants that have died out. Apart from their value as records, plant portraits can highlight the beauty and fragility of our natural heritage, and raise an awareness of its value and vulnerability.

A visit to this exhibition could stimulate a number of areas of discussion and provide ideas for projects both for art classes and biology classes. There will be guided walkabouts of the exhibition on the following dates:

Friday, 28 October at 10:00

Saturday, 29 October at 14:00

Sunday, 30 October 2011 at 10:00

For a specialised tour of the exhibits, contact Ann Harris (see below)

Any queries or requests for guidance in this area can be directed to:
Taz Sadik - [email protected]
Ann Wanless - [email protected] - 082 220 7720
Ann Harris - [email protected] - 082 630 7230