Botanical Illustration

Perennial Flower Illustrations at the Glasgow University Library

Well, I missed this exhibit in 1995, but there's a nice webpage about it that's still up, and in fact was revised in 1999. There aren't as many sample illustrations as I'd like -- only a handful, in fact -- but there's still fascinating information here. For instance, I learned that a 1554 book of illustrations, overseen by a physician, used "cross-hatching ... to display contours and varying thickness of line to indicate depth. Some coloured copies exist but these were published as black and white and then coloured by their owners." And that the first colored book of botanical illustrations was published in 1752. -- Rachel