Botanical Art- The Blend of Nature and Creativity

Botany is a branch of biology that is related to the study of plants. Plants and flowers are a great source of inspiration and they also have rejuvenation powers. Plants and flowers are capable of making you relaxed and they lend you a feeling of oneness with the nature.

Thus, the abundance of flora (plants and flowers) has long been used for decoration purposes- both indoor as well as outdoor. This excessive use of flowers and plants for decoration purposes has given rise to many beautiful and vibrant botanical art forms.

The botanical art is a highly organized art form. In this art form, the portrait of a plant features a unique combination of artistic skills with minute observation of the plant details. The main purpose of botanical art is to reveal the identity, the artistic beauty and the precise physical features of a plant.

The botanical art enhances the ability of the viewer to understand the structure of a plant, its roots, stem, flowers and leaves. It is the creativity of an individual on which depends the botanical art and its exhibition. The botanical art makes use of water colors, color pencils and many such things to impart the beauty to the art form.

Cretavas, a Greek physician is known to be the earliest master of botanical art. He lived in the first century BC, where lies the history of botanical art. All through the sixteenth and seventeenth century botanical art was very popular. It mainly focused on the aesthetics of a plant or a flower.

But, only the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries can be rightly called as the golden age of botanical art. During this time period, botanical art was at its full swing. Artists like Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Ferdinand Bauer and Georg Ehret were well known botanical artists. They gave botanical art a new dimension and made it much admired by people.

As botanical art is quite an admired art form, today many institutions even offer short-term and long-term courses in this discipline. They teach an individual to make use of imagination and observation to develop a master piece. Here, the plant and flower lovers experience great satisfaction while giving their skills a practical shape.

The botanical art forms are also used in interior decoration as they impart beauty and freshness to the space they are kept in. Even porticos are well decorated using these botanical art forms. Also, a botanical art piece can also serve as a good gift for a loved one.