Botanical Art

Art and Environment
Biodiversity
Environmental & Science Education
Edward Hessler

Out of the Woods: Celebrating Trees in Public Gardens is an international exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), New York City with the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA).

The art includes watercolor, oil, graphite, colored pencil and ink. Forty-two were selected for the exhibition. You may see a sample of the illustrations here.

The things you can see when you are looking! Or as Yogi Berra once remarked, "You can observe a lot just by watching."

Few of us though can do the kind of art found in this exhibition. I'm grateful for artists with the talent, training and work ethic who help me see and appreciate the natural world from another perspective.

I also want to take this opportunity to call attention to the German-born naturalist, entomologist, and scientific illustrator, Maria Sibylla Merian, 1647-1717. She was the first person to record the process of metamorphosis.  Merian was also a bold explorer. At age 50 she, accompanied by her daughter Dorothea Maria, set out on a solo expedition to Suriname.

A wonderful biography by Kim Todd is entitled, Chrysallis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis.