
Botanical illustration is becoming endangered - vo2maxer
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/botanical-illustration-is-becoming-endangered-but-the-job-is-essential/2020/01/28/24636724-3dff-11ea-8872-5df698785a4e_story.html
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andrewla
I think there is something important that we lose when we increase the
accuracy of a representation at the expense of the elegance of the
representation. Illustrations to photographs is a great example here, but
another one is in maps.

I don't know if anyone here ever used this, but there used to be a system
called LineDrive [1] that would give you "napkin" directions instead of
overlaying the directions on a map. It used to be on Microsoft's MapPoint but
apparently decomissioned [2].

This was most useful in the time when you would print out directions instead
of getting them dynamically, but I feel like there's still a place for it -- I
don't need to necessarily know the details of every twist and turn in the road
so much as a schematic overview, even when getting turn-by-turn directions. It
would be great to see this revived in some way, because I think the
representative maps are much more clear for most use cases.

[1]
[http://vis.berkeley.edu/papers/rtmaps/](http://vis.berkeley.edu/papers/rtmaps/)

[2]
[https://somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/remember...](https://somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/remembering-
linedrive/)

~~~
fao_
> I think there is something important that we lose when we increase the
> accuracy of a representation at the expense of the elegance of the
> representation.

But that's not what's happening.

Botanical art is still highly valued in the botany field because field
conditions often do not allow a completely accurate replication of a specimen
via a camera lens. In many cases, the only way to properly represent the plant
in question, to a colour-accurate, detail-accurate degree, is by a drawing.
Source: My mother is a highly qualified botanical artist and a member of the
SBA.

~~~
andrewla
Yes, still valued, but isn't the shift what the linked article is about?
"Botanical illustrators like Tangerini are rare and becoming as endangered as
some of the plants they draw."

~~~
fao_
It's not about being valued, they're literally indispensible for the
documentation of plants, there are _no_ alternatives that match the quality of
the documentation that they produce.

As for them being rare, part of that is due to education and the
infrastructure around it. When my mother was growing up botanical illustration
or scientific illustration was not listed as even a potential career choice,
and she wasn't allowed to take art and science at the same time as "that
wouldn't be realistic". Obviously things have changed since then but given
that so few artists even recognise it as a career choice has an impact on the
number of people who decide to go down that path.

It's like how the UK is running out of high quality vellum, used for legal
paper and archiving, because nobody realises it's a viable career choice for
them to do. There's literally a free, funded apprenticeship to do it, because
they _need_ people to do this job.

------
sailfast
I understand that illustrations can be powerful and valuable.

I also understand from this article that nobody is willing to pay for this
person's replacement, and the current freelancer quoted cannot even find it in
themselves to motivate others to do this kind of work.

Are these folks becoming endangered, or are there many people available but
nobody to pay a living wage? Maybe this article does something to encourage
funding these positions?

Also:

> "The prospect of being among the last of her kind is one of the reasons that
> Tangerini, who could have retired some time ago, is still here."

If the Smithsonian was willing to replace her, I'd imagine that she's actually
blocking the future of the career field, rather than helping it. My
supposition is that they are not planning on hiring another full-timer.

~~~
pvaldes
> are there many people available but nobody to pay

This. I personally would not have any problem doing a job like that.

~~~
AmericanChopper
Placing this on employers though is silly. The real problem is that there’s
not enough people willing to pay for the product, not enough demand for it. I
own a lot of cook books, I’ve seen plenty with wonderful illustrations. They
are beautiful, but I’d never buy one, because they’re simply much less useful.
A cook book with good pictures will help me with what I’m actually trying to
do, which is learn how to cook new things.

~~~
pvaldes
Well, all I can say to that is that taxonomy is a little more complicated than
cooking

~~~
AmericanChopper
You’re saying it requires an even greater level of photographic detail? If
there was demand for this product in the market, then the profession wouldn’t
be “endangered” (which is also a silly way of describing it, you can train a
person to be a botanical illustrator. You can’t train a dog to be a panda).

~~~
Retric
No you’re completely missing the point. In cooking photos may be more useful
than illustrations, but in botany it’s illustrations that are more useful.
Therefore it’s on people that want illustrations to find talent not talent’s
job to somehow know exactly what skills are required.

To use a related example, Walt Disney created a collage specifically to teach
the skills he wanted animators to have. We don’t think in those terms, but
complaining about a lack of qualified people just means you’re unwilling to
train people.

~~~
AmericanChopper
I think you seem to be missing the point. Disney needed more artists than the
market had in supply. Institutions dealing with botany have more illustrators
than they need.

> Bobbi Angell, a botanical artist in Brattleboro, Vt., explains the shift:
> Floras are not commissioned as they once were; they are laborious and
> expensive undertakings, botanists retire and are not replaced, and much of
> plant taxonomy has shifted to the molecular level.

> “I get calls from young, aspiring artists, and it’s kind of hard to
> encourage them,” said Angell

The market clearly has a greatly diminished demand for these skills. It has
nothing to do with unscrupulous employers, or lack of training. People just
stopped buying what they were selling.

~~~
Retric
I am not saying they currently need more artists.

I am saying people don’t currently think in terms of a training pipeline. We
have the idea that it’s up to employees to train themselves before getting the
job. Thus potential illustrators contacting her and the expectation she should
encourage them.

PS: As to the school, students need to pay to attend cal arts. It’s a clever
cost saving means not an internal training program. They saved money even if
none of the graduates worked for Disney it still increases supply.

~~~
AmericanChopper
I’m really not at all sure about what your point is supposed to be. The reason
the profession is dying has nothing to do with training. It is entirely down
to the fact that people stopped buying these products.

> We have the idea that it’s up to employees to train themselves before
> getting the job

Regardless of who does the training, it is most certainly up to the individual
to acquire their own marketable skills if they wish to go out and market them.
As long as there’s demand for those skills, there’ll be people willing to
train in them. Employers may wish to initiate their own training programs, but
they’ll only ever do that if they have a demand for labor that’s met with a
shortage of supply. This is already commonplace in industries commonly that
have apprenticeships or internships. But what are you expecting? Museums to
start hiring apprentice botanical illustrators, so that when they’re properly
trained they can look forward to having to transition into a different field
because nobody has any demand for their newly learnt skills?

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ThePhysicist
If you like botanical illustrations you’ll love the work of Ernst Häckel, a
Professor of botany from Germany who was also a great artist (in my opinion)
and who produced an incredible amount of astonishingly beautiful
illustrations. I recently gave a book with a collection of them to my wife as
a gift and we spent hours just marveling at the drawings as well as copying
some of them. Here’s the (non-affiliate) link if you’re interested:

[https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/3836526468/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?key...](https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/3836526468/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=art+and+science+of+ernst+haeckel&qid=1580493675&sprefix=art+and+science+of+ern&sr=8-1)

~~~
Symbiote
Many (all?) of Häckel's illustrations are on Wikimedia Commons:
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel)

------
logiczero
If anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area is interested in learning botanical
illustration, Filoli Gardens offers courses in it:
[https://filoli.org/classes/botanical-art-
classes/](https://filoli.org/classes/botanical-art-classes/)

------
alikim
The article mentions that illustration is a lot better than photography but
doesn't mention any specifics. Does anyone have insight as to why this is?

~~~
erikpukinskis
It’s the same reason there are $100 million paintings but not $100 million
photographs.

Painting is not copying. Painting is _seeing_ and then making marks on the
page that will make others see.

It is editorial in a way photography isn’t.

~~~
samatman
I don't think that this is the reason.

Photographs are inherently multiple; a single print might be all that exists,
but the artist is at least _able_ to make more.

Comparing photographs and prints, Picasso's "La Femme Qui Pleure I" sold for
$5.1M[0], while the most paid for a photograph appears to be $4.3M, for Rhein
II by Andreas Gursky[1].

I conclude from this that it's the singularity of paintings, rather than their
editorial and subjective quality, that is responsible for the difference in
price.

[0]: [https://www.christies.com/features/saleroom-picasso-la-
femme...](https://www.christies.com/features/saleroom-picasso-la-femme-qui-
pleure-1870-3.aspx)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_photogr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_photographs)

~~~
thanatropism
You speak-write with such certainty that I'm sure you have an argument in your
mind, but it didn't come across. I feel like some sentences were erased from
your comment.

~~~
lonelappde
Supply and Demand. A valuable photo has higher supply so each copy is worth
less. A valuable concrete illustration has supply of 1, even if the artist has
cranked out many similar works.

------
tapvt
My favorite elective in college was Botanical Illustration. I was quite
terrible at it, but it was calming while still being incredibly technical.

------
dmitryminkovsky
Been following this account for a few years and do love it very much
[https://mobile.twitter.com/pomological](https://mobile.twitter.com/pomological)

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thanatropism
This is a beautiful book we had bought to give as a present when my nephews
(or maybe an eventual son/daughter) are older, but ended up keeping for
ourselves.

[https://www.amazon.com/Maps-Aleksandra-
Mizielinska/dp/076366...](https://www.amazon.com/Maps-Aleksandra-
Mizielinska/dp/0763668966)

"The map is not the territory" is a well-worn metaphor that's not really about
maps anymore -- but in that book some features (cultural, architectural,
physical, etc.) are given such prominence at the expense of realism that you
understand much more than you would by looking at methodical cartography.

------
abecode
Minneapolis has a school of botanical art,
[http://www.minnesotaschoolofbotanicalart.com](http://www.minnesotaschoolofbotanicalart.com),
here are some nice examples:
[http://www.minnesotaschoolofbotanicalart.com/photos/photos-3...](http://www.minnesotaschoolofbotanicalart.com/photos/photos-3/)
It’s hard to tell if it’s trending/thriving here (my wife’s been taking
classes so I hear a lot about it) but at least it doesn’t seem too endangered
here.

------
Myrmornis
If you would like a beautifully illustrated and generally fantastic guide to
the wild flowers of the UK (and northern Europe I guess) then get this,
illustrated by the late Marjorie Blamey: [https://www.amazon.com/Cassells-
Flowers-Britain-Northern-Eur...](https://www.amazon.com/Cassells-Flowers-
Britain-Northern-Europe/dp/030436214X)

------
aurizon
Back in the day the ability to render an insect or plant in an elegant and
expressive manner was a real skill people with an initial were taught, or self
taught these skills - llok at the old bird and plant books from those days.
Now we have photoshopped digital pix, we have gained as well as lost...

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pavedwalden
There's an edX course about scientific illustration that looks interesting:
[https://www.edx.org/course/drawing-nature-science-and-
cultur...](https://www.edx.org/course/drawing-nature-science-and-culture-
natural-history)

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martyvis
You need to follow "old fruit pictures" (@pomological):
[https://twitter.com/pomological?s=09](https://twitter.com/pomological?s=09)

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heavenlyblue
Omg, this is so ripe for hacking with a combination of opencv plus some
knowledge in topology.

E.g. make a video of a plant, then make a model out of it and then unwrap the
model depicting the most interesting features.

~~~
ska
> and then unwrap the model depicting the most interesting features.

That part will be hard.

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neonate
[http://archive.md/cS4UN](http://archive.md/cS4UN)

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ecoled_ame
Photography and microscopy have sure taken off though

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jbob2000
How is this better than photography? Surely it's easier to zoom in on a
picture to see it's characteristics.

This is concerning: "her gaze is on plants, dried specimens of dead plants, up
close, and closer, under a microscope. _Sometimes she hydrates stems and
flower parts, coaxing zombie life into them._ "

How does she know which parts of the plant to hydrate? What if it doesn't
actually look like that in real life?

~~~
simion314
>How is this better than photography?

I can think of some ways:

\- a photo can have too many details

\- a drawing does not have a focal point so it can be sharper

\- a drawing can accentuate some important features, like caricatures are easy
to recognize then pictures

My conclusion is you can have both pictures and illustrations , use them in
combination or the best tool for the job

~~~
jbob2000
You can edit a photograph to serve these purposes. You don't have to use a
photo exactly as it is returned from the camera.

