“Konrad von Megenberg00” by Konrad von Megenberg (1309–1374) – http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/Onlinexhibits/exhbtcata.html. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Konrad_von_Megenberg00.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Konrad_von_Megenberg00.jpg
Moving from and building upon the naturalism of the late Renaissance, full book-length Herbals with highly realistic botanical illustrations evolved. Propelled by the invention of the movable type printing process in Europe in 1439 coupled with the art of woodcut, book-length Herbals showing reasonably realistic portrayals of plants, flowers, trees, and all manner of things botanical began to make their way into the world. The back-story is here: https://gregole.com/2015/01/20/the-art-of-botanical-illustration-an-illustrated-history-part-i/
“The Art of the woodcut, practiced at a relatively relatively early date in the Far East, was either introduced into Europe or independently rediscovered there shortly after the year 1400. In the early block books, text and figures were cut upon the same piece of wood. But with the invention of movable type, wood-cutting still remained the ideal method of book illustration, for, being a process involving surface printing, figures and text could be set up sided by side and passed simultaneously through the press.”
“The woodcut is usually conceived as a black-line drawing, the unwanted background being cut away so that it may not come into contact with the ink roller…”
“It might well be imagined that these new discoveries would have effected an immediate revolution in botanical illustration, but this was far from being so. During the closing years of the fifteenth century, when naturalism had already taken a firm hold of painting and illumination from Italy to Flanders, the illustrators of the first printed herbals were for the most part still perpetuating the degraded plant figures derived from classical models…”
From Chapter 4 ibid
The first breakthrough Herbal book, Herbarium Vivae Eicones, was a collaboration between a scholar/author, Otto Brunfels (b. 1488 Mainz, Germany, d. 1534) and woodcut artist Hans Weiditz (b. 1495 Freiburg, Germany, d. 1537):
“Otto Brunfels, though claimed by his contemporaries as one of the great pioneers of botany, was in reality little more than a compiler, who sought the substance of his inspiration in the well-worn pages of classical and medieval writers, discreetly seasoned with livelier passages from the works of his immediate predecessors in Italy. The illustrator, Hans Weiditz, on the other hand, was a brilliant and original artist who set new standards of truth and beauty for the printed herbal; and his designs were interpreted upon the wood by highly accomplished engravers.”
From Chapter 5 ibid
Perhaps the author is being a bit harsh on Otto – he is referred to as one of the fathers of modern botany, and he has a genus of plant named after him: The plant genus Brunfelsia (Solanaceae).
Weiditz is an undisputed genius though.
Check all of these out – I’m not showing them because most aren’t concerned with today’s topic – botanical illustration. But check out “Gossip Sisters and the Devil”. First off, it’s an awesome composition; but check out how not-overdrawn it is. I like to draw, but I suffer from the amateur flaw of overdrawing my subjects. Even good artists do this; this composition is a textbook on how not to overdraw. And please, please, please, check out “Prayer on the Mount of Olives”. Genius I say.
“Buglossa sylvestris, Wild Ochpen Zung Wellcome L0075035” by http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/09/89/3d1201b980b62b5d2768a78c3985.jpgGallery: http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/L0075035.html. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buglossa_sylvestris,_Wild_Ochpen_Zung_Wellcome_L0075035.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Buglossa_sylvestris,_Wild_Ochpen_Zung_Wellcome_L0075035.jpg
He set a new standard:
“Such was his skill that no one could say “these plants are not real.” The very title of the work – “Living Portraits of Plants” – gives us a clue to the character of Weiditz’s innovation: the artist had used his own eyes; he had relied entirely upon Nature for his inspiration.”
The next publishing blockbuster in Botanical Art was another German Herbal, De Historia Stirpium (1542) a book by Leonhard Fuchs, a child prodigy, medical doctor, botanist, and all-around brilliant person.
Fuchs was born in 1501 in Wemding in the Duchy of Bavaria. After attending a school in Heilbronn, Fuchs went to the Marienschule in Erfurt, Thuringia at the age of twelve, and graduated as Baccalaureus artium. In 1524 he became Magister Artium in Ingolstadt, and was received doctor of medicine in the same year.
From 1524-1526 he practiced as a doctor in Munich, until he received a chair of medicine at Ingolstadt[clarification needed] in 1526. From 1528-1531 he was the personal physician of Georg, Margrave of Brandenburg in Ansbach.
Fuchs was called to Tübingen by Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg in 1533 to help in reforming the University of Tübingen in the spirit of humanism. He created its first medicinal garden in 1535 and served as chancellor seven times, spending the last thirty-one years of his life as professor of medicine. Fuchs died in Tübingen in 1566.
Errata recentiorum medicorum (“Errors of recent doctors”) (Hagenau, 1530), his first publication, in which he argued for the use of “simples” (herbs) rather than the noxious “compounds” of arcane ingredients concocted in medieval medicine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhart_Fuchs
You have to love this guy! My how times haven’t changed much.
He employed top-notch artists and artisans – this is one of my all time favorite botanical illustrations:
And this one:
Woodcut of Hemp or Cannabis sativa as illustrated in the herbal www.lycaeum.org
Fuchs’ name is preserved by the plant Fuchsia, discovered in the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean in 1696/97 by the French scientist Dom Charles Plumier, who published the first description of “Fuchsia triphylla, flore coccineo” in 1703. The color fuchsia is also named for him, describing the purplish-red of the shrub’s flowers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhart_Fuchs
“LeonardFuchsMiall” by L C Miall – L C Miall. The History of Biology. Watts and Co.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LeonardFuchsMiall.png#mediaviewer/File:LeonardFuchsMiall.png
“Fuchs’s plates were to have a far-reaching influence on botanical illustration for many years to come, and in the preface to one of his later editions he complained bitterly of the way in which his plates had been pirated.” chapter 5 ibid
Stirpium (1542, illustrated history of plants by Leonhard Fuchs expandiverse.com