Ocean flowers2004

"The book focuses on natural-history imagery in the mid-nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on the botanical drawings and photograms by the artist Anna Atkins (1799-1871) and her Victorian contemporaries." "In addition to providing a feast for the eyes, the book illuminates shifts in the way the natural world was represented. In the mid-1800s, the advent of photography provided new possibilities, generating as much creative fervor as digital media have in recent years. In addition to handmade drawings, hand-colored prints, nature prints (direct imprints from plants), and natural illustrations (real specimens mounted on the page), artists began making photogenic drawings (as William Henry Fox Talbot first dubbed his early photographs) to record botanical specimens. A kind of...