A letter from the Editor

Dear Friends:
“…During the 18th century the beginnings of an engraving and copperplate printing branch of the book trade began to emerge. Largely confined to the great urban centers of Boston, New York and Philadelphia, their work was seen in early engraved maps, maritime charts, battle plans during the War of Independence, illustrated architectural books, some Bible illustrations, and so forth, some of considerable competence…

American illustrated botanical literature made only slow progress…Nevertheless, major works on American botany were still being printed and published in Europe [around 1812)…Over the next few years the American output increased gradually…but quality and quantity of plated produced increased significantly, in several instances matching European standards.

…America’s botanical printmaking always had a more utilitarian goal. Botanical exploration was to continue right through the century; the last great American wilderness being explored by the Harriman Alaska Expedition in 1899…Almost the first need was to produce verbal and pictorial descriptions of the native flora of this great New World.

…Alongside the great need to describe and illustrate American plants for scientific purposes was an interest in their practical value, medical botany being a major feature of their exploitation. Again, illustration was an important element since the correct identification of significant healing plants was crucial, mistakes perhaps proving fatal.

…Another great field for plant exploitation was the rapidly burgeoning horticultural industry. Apart from the personal needs of American gardeners the creation of great urban centers stimulated immense attention on the identification, selection and production of plant resources for the dinner table, the parlor, the kitchen and the flower garden.

…By mid-century, fruit became a highly important element in the horticulture industry…In 1847-1856 C.M. Hovey published The Fruits of America...The third volume of Ebenezer Emmons’ Agriculture of New York; published at Albany in 1851, dealt with fruit…The Illustrated Pear Culturist of 1857…was soon outclassed by…W.D. Brincklé edition of Hoffy’s North American Pomologist…with 60 remarkable colored plates described by McGrath (1966) as “almost good enough to eat.”

A broad miscellany of popular “colored” books straddled the middle years of the century. One of the more numerous groups are those on the language, symbolism and poetry of flowers…Some books of this genre sought to improve their fanciful content by adding a simple outline of botany.

[By the end of the 19th –century], all the highly developed skills of [hand drawn printmaking]…were no longer essential for commercial book illustration. Specialized graphic-arts technicians, …photomechanical printing surfaces, had replaced them all, and sophisticated power-driven machines put the images on paper.

[However,]… in the 20th century, [printmaking] is free to become the sole province of artists who could use its various traditional, and some innovative, techniques to produce creatively conceived and executed images of plants in the form of what we now speak of as true “prints.”

Excerpt from American Botanical Prints of Two Centuries, Gavin D. R. Bridson, The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
This last paragraph is certainly a call to arms, or hand!
-OM

And God sent flowers to beautify
The earth, and cheer man’s careful mood;
And he is happiest who hath power
To gather wisdom from a flower,
And wake his heart in every hour
To pleasant gratitude.

~ Mary Howitt, 1867

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