Botanical Photography: ‘A Fine Sight in the Winter’

Anna Atkins, Dictyota dichotoma

I recently visited a fascinating exhibition tracing the story of botanical photography from the 1840s to the present day. (‘Unearthed: Photography’s Roots’ is at the Dulwich Picture Gallery until 30 August.)

There is a long history of people creating impressions of plants. Thirteenth century Islamic scholars illustrated books with pressed leaves. Leonardo da Vinci wrote about the practice. In the eighteenth century Tahitian tribespeople made images by placing leaves soaked in ink from tree sap onto tapa cloth. Benjamin Franklin claimed to be the inventor of ‘nature printing’ to foil counterfeiters.

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) was one of the pioneers of modern photography. In 1834 he found that he could capture impressions of objects when he placed them in direct sunlight on paper coated with salt, water and silver nitrate. He called this process ‘photogenic drawing,’ and at the exhibition you can see his delicate images of primroses in a teacup, dahlias in a vase, a pineapple in a basket. 

'I do not claim to have perfected an art, but to have commenced one, the limits of which it is not possible at present exactly to ascertain.’
William Henry Fox Talbot

William Henry Fox Talbot - A Fruit Piece with a single pineapple

Botanist Anna Atkins (1799-1871) was an early adopter of the cyanotype process, which involved mixing two chemicals to produce a photosensitive solution. (Cyanotypes were employed to reproduce architectural drawings, hence the term ‘blueprint.’) She published twelve volumes of algae images, the first books with photographic illustrations, and helped to fuel the Victorian ‘fern craze’. Against a vivid Prussian blue background the plants have an ethereal presence, a fragile beauty. 

'The difficulty of making accurate drawings of objects so minute as many of the Algae and Confervae has induced me to avail myself of [the] beautiful process of Cyanotype, to obtain impressions of the plants themselves, which I have much pleasure in offering to my botanical friends.'
Anna Atkins

Sometimes early photographers catalogued plant life for scientific records. Sometimes they sought to recreate Dutch flower painting. And sometimes they designed images that suggested life’s transience. Subsequently they saw in plant photography compelling abstractions or resemblances to the human body. They used their pictures as inspiration for textile designs. They turned to botanical subjects to escape the ravages of war.

Broccoli Leamington, c.1895-1910 by Charles Jones. © Sean Sexton/ Dulwich Picture Gallery

Charles Jones (1866-1959), a gardener at Ote Hall in Sussex in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, took hundreds of photographs of the plants in his care using a glass plate camera. Probably self-taught, he was not recognised as a photographer in his lifetime. It was only in 1981, 22 years after his death, that a collector found a trunk of his photographs on Bermondsey Market. His images were close cropped and precisely lit – sensitive portraits of turnips, tomatoes, potatoes and broccoli; loving records of cabbages, cucumbers, celery and sugar peas. Stark and simple, they look like they come from another world.

Kazumasa Ogawa (1860-1929), the son of one of the last Samurai, belonged to a Japanese generation that embraced modernity and industry. An early master of colour photography, he adopted the chromo collotype process, creating up to 25 separate plates, one for each colour. Photographers from elsewhere in the world employing this method tended to use only 6-8 colours per picture. Even today, after progressing past gallery walls filled with black and white imagery, one is shocked to see Ogawa’s vibrant colour pictures of chrysanthemums, lotuses and lilies. Such frail elegance.

Ogawa Kazumasa: Chrysanthemum, albumen print, hand-colored, Japan c. 1890

What can we learn from all these exquisite archaic images frozen in time? 

First we can appreciate the virtues of constraint. The early photographers concentrated on plants because exposure times were around 40 minutes. Animals and people made quite challenging subjects.

Then there is the power of observation. If we scrutinise a subject, however humble; if we really examine it closely with curious eyes, it will offer up extraordinary rewards. 

And thirdly we can reflect on the fundamental capacity of pictures to communicate. In her Foreword to the exhibition catalogue, gallery director Jennifer Scott quotes a 1606 letter sent by the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel on the completion of a still life.

‘I have invested all my skill in this picture. I do not believe that so many rare and different flowers have been painted before, not rendered so painstakingly: it will be a fine sight in the winter.’

Of course, we now inhabit a visual culture where pictures are ubiquitous - so easy to create, edit and distribute. But Brueghel’s remark reminds us of the primary powers of the image: to demolish distance and time; to bring beauty to drab surroundings; to transport us to other worlds; to conjure up companionship in our loneliest moments, and sunshine in the depths of winter.

There was one final lesson that I took from the exhibition, a lesson about priorities.

Charles Jones, though a hugely gifted photographer, loved his plants first and foremost. Once a photograph had been printed, he would scratch the glass negative clean so he could use it again - or repurpose it as a cloche for his seedlings. 

'Think it over,
Life ain't a four leaf clover.
Love is a flower, from that a bud,
To spread its sunshine and make us love.’
The Emotions, ‘Flowers’ (A Bowers / R Harding / J Hibbert / C Lee / B Mitchell / L Prior / S White)

No. 330

The Rhythm of Change: Linocut, The Democratic Medium

Wet Afternoon by Ethel Spowers

‘An art of the people for their homes.’
Claude Flight

One of my favourite exhibitions of 2019 considered the art of the linocut. (‘Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking’ was at the Dulwich Picture Gallery some while ago, but you can still buy the excellent book that accompanied the exhibition.)

Linoleum, or lino, is a cheap, hardwearing and easily cleaned floor covering invented in the 1860s by the Englishman Frederick Walton. It is made by fixing a mixture of cork and linseed oil onto a canvas backing. In the early twentieth century German printmakers developed the technique of the linocut: a design is cut into a linoleum sheet with a sharp knife or V-shaped chisel; the lino is inked with a roller and then pressed onto paper or fabric. 

Between 1925 and the start of the Second World War the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in Pimlico was the centre of a pioneering movement in British printmaking. The group was led by visionary teacher and artist Claude Flight, who believed that the linocut, with its affordable materials and accessible techniques, was a truly democratic medium. 

‘The linocut is different to the other printing mediums. It has no tradition of technique behind it, so that the student can go forward without thinking of what Bewick and Rembrandt did before. He can make his own tradition, and coming at a time like the present when new ideas and ideals are shaping themselves out of apparent chaos, he can do his share in building up a new and more vital art of tomorrow.’ 
Claude Flight, 1934

Whence and Wither by Cyril Power

The particular nature of the linocut demanded strong lines and a reduced colour palette. It predisposed printmakers to convey patterns, rhythms and movement. And Flight’s modernist, egalitarian ideals prompted his students to articulate themes of contemporary urban life.

And so we see the serried ranks of rush hour commuters descending into the underground gloom, all hatted with hunched shoulders. The tube carriages are cramped and grim faced. The red buses crowd down Regent Street, past the policeman and the Bovril advert. Umbrellas are held like legionary shields to the wind and rain. There are flat-capped workers digging the road, laying cable, sticking up posters. Porters bustle past us, flower girls stoop under their heavy panniers. 

Time to relax and put our feet up. Deckchairs in the park, parasols, newspapers and sweet tea. Let’s sit back and watch the horse guards. And then the city turns to play. There’s tennis, rugby and hockey; skiing, skating and sledging. The speedway riders lean into the corner, the footballers lean into the tackle. The merry-go-round spins faster, the rumba band kicks in. And so at last the dancers hit the stage. 

Do you remember?

The linocuts of the Grosvenor School capture the dynamism of the industrial age, the pulsating tempo of city streets, the teeming life of the public transport system, the vibrant leisure pursuits of working people. This is the modern world, thrilling and vigorous; buzzing, humming and fizzing. It’s the rhythm of change.

Speedway by Sybil Andrews

These were fresh themes for British art. Since linocuts came from such humble origins, they were not taken seriously by the art establishment And so their creators felt free from conventional definitions of what constituted appropriate subject matter. 

What’s more, because the linocut printmakers were unencumbered by traditional art school training, they were liberated to explore contemporary styles of expression: Futurism, Vorticism and Cubism.

Flight ensured that the doors to the linocut medium were open as wide as possible. He published manuals and lectured extensively. And you needed no qualifications to attend his classes.

‘Sometimes in his classes it is hard to remember that he is teaching, so complete is the camaraderie between him and his students. He treats them as fellow-artists rather than pupils, discusses with them and suggests to them, never dictates or enforces. At the same time he is so full of enthusiasm for his subject, and his ideas are so clear and reasoned, that it is impossible for his students not to be influenced by them.’
Artist Eveline Syme on Claude Flight

Flight teaches us that we can transform any artform by placing it in the hands of ordinary people: Create a medium that is affordable and available. Consider subjects that are real and relevant. Communicate in a style that is contemporary and current. 

Simple.

Flight had imagined that the linocut would be accessible not just to ordinary artists, but also to ordinary buyers. However, the Grosvenor House prints were so popular that on average they sold for 2 guineas apiece - which was about the average weekly wage at the time. Flight was a victim of his own success.

‘What was wrong with me was that I had to see
All of the changes I’d put you through.
So now I’m changing for you.
Changing.
Really, really, really, really
Changing, girl.’

The Chi Lites, ‘Changing for You’ (A Calvard, A Reynolds, E Davis, F Reynolds, L Simon, Jr.)

No. 289

You Looking at Me? The Passive Observer and the Active Contributor

Ribera, The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (1644)

‘If you want me to cry, mourn first yourself.’
Horace, ‘Art of Poetry’

I recently visited an excellent exhibition of paintings by Jusepe de Ribera at the Dulwich Picture Gallery (‘Ribera: Art of Violence’, until 27 January).

Ribera was born near Valencia in 1591 and spent most of his career in Spanish-controlled Naples. From Caravaggio he learned to give biblical and mythical events immediacy by employing real models, gritty settings and dramatic lighting. He gained a reputation for painting vivid works of pain, brutality and suffering: Saint Sebastian bound to a stake and shot through with arrows, Saint Philip about to be crucified upside-down, the centaur Ixion chained to a wheel, the satyr Marsyas being skinned alive.

In many ways Ribera’s work reflected the dark times he was living through. The Counter Reformation was in full swing. The Church was commissioning devotional images of intense emotion to reinforce faith. The Inquisition was hard at work exposing blasphemy and heresy. Daily life was dangerous and cruel. And Ribera could draw directly from the torture and execution he witnessed on the streets of Naples. He sketched prisoners bound and blindfolded, twisted torsos and terrified screams. In grim detail he captured the torment known as ‘strappado’, whereby victims were hung by their arms until they dislocated.

In ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew’ (1644) two thugs set about flaying their victim with vigour; and Bartholomew stares out at us in the grip of unimaginable agony. He seems to be challenging us to meet his gaze, demanding our attention.

‘I did this for you.’

‘You did this to me.’

‘Feel my pain.’

Bartholomew’s anguished look makes us feel uncomfortable, voyeuristic. It is as if we are responsible, involved, complicit in the crime.

It’s a powerfully engaging device - the viewer viewed - and one which Ribera uses again and again in his work. In the midst of some dramatic incident, a lone figure looks out at us from the picture - a grieving holy woman, a terrified victim, a leering executioner - curious, questioning, sceptical.

Ribera, Saint Sebastian Tended by the Holy Women

What, we seem to be asked, is our point of view on all this? Where do we stand? What are we doing to prevent it?

We’re all at times prone to play the disinterested onlooker, the neutral bystander, the unseen witness. It’s easy to be cool, passive, non-committal and aloof; to be on the sidelines and the fence.

But I’ve found in business that one gravitates towards people with strong personal perspectives; people with passion and conviction. As a leader you’re not asking for everyone to agree with you, but you do want everyone to care.

So if you’re looking to progress your career, take an interest in the future of your industry; a perspective on the outlook for your discipline; a point of view on the prospects for your company. Be an active contributor not a passive observer, a radiator not a drain. Believe in something.

You may not be in a position of power, but you can sign up, pitch in, participate, get involved. You can always do something.

I guess one could say the same about life in general.

‘If not you, who? If not here, where? If not now, when?'

(Quotation attributed to numerous sources, but ultimately derived from Jewish leader, Hillel the Elder)

No. 205