Robert
Thornton, Temple of Flora,London, (1799 - 1807)
, later an edition of 1812 entitled New Illustration of the
Sexual System of Linnaeus, and the most celebrated of all
English Botanical Books.
The project is unusual in several ways. The plates which vary in
number in various editions are by several artists with Thornton
acting as a design director. One artist would paint the flower,
another the background. The backgrounds set a most imaginative
precedent for the future of Flower (and Natural History) Books.
The examples are set in a range of moody landscapes which usually
show evidence of human activity. The impact of the plates can be
seen in Daniell's illustrations to the three volums edition of
ZOOGRAPHY in 1811. Thornton's Temple of Flora was a massive and
ultimately financially unsuccessfully undertaking. It exploits
a peculiarly English Romantic conceit of the composition without
a middle distance. The quality of reproduction in the book is high,
and the scale immense (an atlas folio) and the plates a cunning
mixture on mezzotint, aquatint and stipple engraving with partial
printing in colour supplemented by hand.
01
The Hyacinth
02
The Superb Lily
03
A Group of Auriculas
Thornton's Temple of Flora, The Narrow Leaved Kalmia aquatint 1790-1804
Recommended
Ronald King (ed) The Temple of Flora (with excellent
Bibliography), Weidenfield & Nicholson, London 1981.
Handasyde
Buchanan, Nature Into Art , Weidenfield & Nicholson,
London 1979 |