A letter from the Editor

The Botanical Paintings of
Franz Bauer (1758-1840) and
Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826)

“The last 200 years can show no artist of the caliber of these brilliant brothers
(Ferdinand and Franz)”
~ Wilfred Blunt, Art of Botanical Illustration (1950)

Dear Friends:

The following is an excerpt from my book, “Ten Steps, A Course in Botanical Art – Drawing IV, Volume 4.”

The Bauer brothers acquired their first taste of scientific botanical study by their association with Father Norbert Boccius, Abbot of Feldsberg, in 1763. They became well trained in botany producing over 2000 watercolor drawings of plant specimens under his guidance. In 1780, the eminent botanist and Director of the Royal Botanical Garden at Schonbrunn Palace, Nikolaus van Jacquin, took the brothers as students for further training in botany.

Ferdinand’s career as a botanical artist began after an introduction to John Sibthorp, Sherardian Professor of Botany at Oxford University. Both men traveled together to Greece and Asia Minor collecting and painting plants. A result of this expedition was the published Flora Graeca, a great work with 966 colored illustrations.

Ferdinand Bauer devised a unique numerical coding system while working in the field to remind him how to complete the coloring of his paintings when back in England. He worked from fresh specimens, enabling him to get the colors correct and to code the unfinished sketches accurately. Although Ferdinand worked at an amazing speed very few of the animal paintings were ever completed beyond the sketching stage.

Returning again after eight months of collecting and sketching in Norfolk Island, the Blue Mountains and New South Wales, Ferdinand returned in October 1805 to England with eleven packing cases of drawings. The next five years Ferdinand spent engraving his own plates and hand coloring some of them for Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae.

Despite being overshadowed by the artworks of his renowned and much-traveled brother Ferdinand, Franz Bauer's images have much scientific value. His drawings are also a historic record of the development of Kew Gardens. For forty years, Franz illustrated the newly discovered plants that were introduced to England via Kew, where they were being grown and studied for the first time in a scientific manner. Bauer provided illustrations for a number of botanical books, including his 1818 work 'Strelitzia depicta': or coloured figures of the known species of the genus Strelitzia from the drawings in the Banksian Library'.

Franz Bauer was probably the first artist to draw detailed plant dissections for recording purposes at Kew with remarkable detail and accuracy, despite the optical limitations of the microscopes of his time. By the early nineteenth century, plant anatomy was seen as an important tool for identification of different species.

God bless. OM

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

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Botanical Art Workshop with OM Braida
Mackinac Island, Michigan
June 21-26, 2004
Call or email for more information
941-953-9999; Olivia@omartdesigns.com

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