In 1699 Maria Sibylla Merian traveled from Holland to Suriname, in South America, together with her daughter Dorthea, to study butterflies and their metamorphosis. A few years earlier she had separated from her husband and entered a Lutheran commune, where she began studying tropical specimens. She was one of the pioneering scientific explorers. And the numerous sketches of her and watercolors of her in situ left for posterity one of the first visual documents on entomology.
Like most illustrators of antiquity, she came from a family of artists dedicated to painting or engraving, who integrated them into their workshops and there developed great technical skill. In her case, furthermore, she exemplifies how some women, even then, were able to live alternatively to social conventions thanks to her passion for the natural world.
The exhibition and book They Illustrate Botany. Art, science and gender collects the illustration works of thirty female authors from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th. And it seeks to establish synergies between art and science, showing how both disciplines have been built in parallel. Coordinated by Toya Legido, artist and professor at the University of Fine Arts of Madrid, it is a project dedicated to the anonymous and forgotten creators of scientific beauty.
“In ancient times – explains Toya Legido – it was already women who identified, collected and studied plants for healing purposes. The so-called witches were nothing more than scientists who worked as doctors, chemists and apothecaries.” It will be in the 17th century when they recover the lost relationship with plants, now through the study and representation of herbaria. “It is important to point out the relevance of these women in this period as references in gender issues, since they broke with the molds of the time and, developing their work, they traced the paths of equality,” says Legido.
In our eminently visual world, the work of these precursors endorses illustration as a universal language, always current. The techniques used in botany over the centuries comprise a wealth of resources. From drawings with graphite or Indian ink, to coloring with tempera or watercolor. In reproductions with engraving, woodcut first appeared, with wood carving, and then sweet carving on a metal plate and etching. Other techniques include tempera on vellum and paper. Or the collage of colored papers on a black ink background. Although photographic representation and transfer systems such as physiography are currently used, illustration is unmatched for schematizing the species, highlighting its specific characteristics.
The style of representing also evolved over the centuries. In the beginning it was more decorative and symbolic, as if they were portraits of flowers. Starting with the creation of Linnaeus' system naturae at the end of the 18th century, based on the reproductive system of plants, the plates show the anatomy, with details of seeds and independent flower sections. In the 20th century, with Marianne North at the forefront, a new mode emerged and the specimens were drawn in the natural environment surrounded by their habitat, considered as an ecosystem.
If the 18th century was a time of adventure to unknown places and the development of one's own projects, in the following century botanical illustrators displayed deep training in natural history and pictorial techniques. It will be in the 20th century, with the opening of universities where botany can be studied, when its activity and integration into work teams at all levels is normalized. Today's botanical illustrators, fully professionalized with a high degree of specialization and scientific rigor, generally work in teams in museums, botanical gardens and research centers in collaborative teams. According to experts, it can already be said that today it is women who are the protagonists of the world panorama of botanical illustration.
The passion of botanical artists for nature led Margaret Mee (1909-1988) to be the first person to paint the moonflower Selenicereus wittii in its natural environment, when she was 74 years old. A specimen that only blooms for a few hours once a year and at night, which she found after having been looking for it for twenty-four years.
“In this research – says Toya Legido – as we reviewed the fantastic illustrations of these women, we discovered that their authors had even more fascinating lives if possible.” Hence the inclusion in the book of the biographies of twenty. “They are the life stories of these activists, who defended parity with their ways of life.”
The book They Illustrate Botany, with more than fifty captivating plates, is an impeccable graphic edition by Lucía M. Diz, co-curator of the homonymous exhibition. The exhibition that has already been seen in some nature centers such as La Casa de las Ciencias in Logroño or the Cristina Enea Foundation in San Sebastián will arrive at the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid next February.
