Books by Martyn Rix
The Golden Age of Botanical Art
by Martyn Rix
The seventeenth century heralded a golden age of exploration, as intrepid travelers sailed around the world to gain firsthand knowledge of previously unknown continents. These explorers also collected the world’s most beautiful flora, and often their findings were recorded for posterity by talented professional artists. The Golden Age of Botanical Art tells the story of these exciting plant-hunting journeys and marries it with full-color reproductions of the stunning artwork they produced. Covering work through the nineteenth century, this lavishly illustrated book offers readers a look at 250 rare or unpublished images by some of the world’s most important botanical artists.
Truly global in its scope, The Golden Age of Botanical Art features work by artists from Europe, China, and India, recording plants from places as disparate as Africa and South America. Martyn Rix has compiled the stories and art not only of well-known figures—such as Leonardo da Vinci and the artists of Empress Josephine Bonaparte—but also of those adventurous botanists and painters whose names and work have been forgotten. A celebration of both extraordinarily beautiful plant life and the globe-trotting men and women who found and recorded it, The Golden Age of Botanical Art will enchant gardeners and art lovers alike.
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Treasures of Botanical Art
by Martyn Rix, Shirley Sherwood
Drawing from the Kew and Shirley Sherwood collections, Treasures of Botanical Art reveals the history of botanical painting, a genre devoted to beauty and science in equal measure. With its origins in fifteenth-century illustrations used to explain the medicinal and culinary uses of plants, botanical art has become an integral and captivating component of botanical science. To fully illuminate this history, the book presents more than two hundred stunning botanical paintings dating back to the fifteenth century. Paintings featured from the Kew collection include works by well-known artists the Bauer brothers, Redouté, Ehret, Fitch, Lilian Snelling and Margaret Mee as well as many lesser known artists. Contemporary works featured from the Sherwood collection by a host of international artists round out this impressive history.
Informative text on the origins, history, and relevance of botanical art, as well as information on the plants themselves, accompanies these stunning images. Biographies of more than 120 artists are provided at the end of the book, revealing the historical and international background of this genre.
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The Golden Age of Botanical Art (Y)
by Martyn Rix
Truly global in its scope, this beautifully illustrated book moves across centuries and continents to explore the evolution and diversity of botanical art.
Images produced in the study of plants have always held a fascination for all those who love nature. The Golden Age of Botanical Art brings together the stories of the intrepid explorers and the professional artists who recorded for posterity the flora that they encountered on their expeditions. It delves into the sketchbooks of explorers in the Himalayas and follows the voyages of those who found new worlds and species as far apart as Russia and South America. Special features cover key figures in the botanical art world including such great names as Ehret and Bauer, as well as distinguished collections, such as that of Mutis at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Madrid. Rarely, or previously unpublished, images from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and other archives from around the world, reveal how these illustrations made a significant contribution to our understanding of the world and the glories of nature.
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Treasured Trees Postcard Book
by Tony Kirkham, Martyn Rix, Christina Harrison, Masumi Yamanaka
This book is a celebration of trees, with beautiful botanical art as its centerpiece, accompanied by an entertaining and informative text. The paintings by Japanese artist Masumi Yamanaka illustrate the oldest and finest trees growing at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, showing the flowers and foliage and sometimes fruit at different stages throughout the year. This book accompanies an exhibition at The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew opening in Spring 2015.
These unique paintings are accompanied by the artist s commentary on the process of painting each tree and her personal experience with them. Masumi also provides an artist s preface, describing the progress of the paintings from sketch to finished work.
Renowned author Martyn Rix provides detailed text to accompany each tree, describing the natural distribution and cultivation history, as well as other points of interest including uses and associated wildlife.
Kew s Tony Kirkham provides an introductory chapter describing the history of tree planting at Kew Gardens and the measures taken to keep them healthy, as well as looking at other great arboreta around the world.
This book is ideal for all those lovers of trees and botanical art, and celebrates the strong association many of us have with trees and their presence in the landscape."
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