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| Ferdinand Bauer's Colour Chart, Royal Botanic Gardens, Madrid |
“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.”
Hans Christian Anderson
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| Passionflower, graphite and pastel colour by Marta Chirino SBA |
I was staying in the
home of my good friend and fellow SBA member Marta Chirino. Marta is the
botanical illustrator for the Royal Botanic Gardens of Madrid, and her work is simply exquisite.
As well as working for the Botanic Gardens, she also has a large
spacious studio in her home where she explores her more creative side. What a
treat it was to be able to spend time with her and to see how she works.
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| Marta and I holding one of her paintings at the Lucia Mendoza Gallery |
Marta is a born
teacher, endlessly patient and extremely generous with her knowledge. Her botanical
art classes are always booked up quickly, so I was thrilled to be invited to attend a workshop in her home. Marta’s classes are generally focussed on drawing
(she is the queen of the sensual line), so I decided to bring colour to the
classroom.
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| Explaining how a colour chart can help you match up the colours of your subjects |
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| The many shades of red in a rose petal |
I soon had her students making colour charts and painting fruit.
What fun we had, despite my lack of Spanish! At times it seemed more like a
party!
Madrid is a city rich
in culture, and there were so many wonderful places to visit. Each day brought
fresh inspiration.
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| Ferdinand Bauer's Colour Chart, Royal Botanic Gardens, Madrid |
I was thrilled
to learn that Ferdinand Bauer’s colour notebook is kept in the archives. Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826) is widely considered one of the world’s finest botanical
artists. He went on many voyages of discovery, recording all the new and exotic
flora. As it was difficult to carry all of his equipment whilst out in the
field, he designed a wonderful colour notebook with every shade of colour
carefully numbered. He made beautiful pencil drawings of his specimens, noting
the numbers of the corresponding colour.
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| Ferdinand Bauer's Colour Notebook |
Upon his return from his travels, he completed
the colour illustrations. The colour chart has since been lost, but a smaller earlier
notebook was discovered amongst the papers of a botanist called Haenke
(1761-1816) in the archives of the Botanic Gardens. The librarian told us a
lovely story of how Haenke was once shipwrecked, and left the ship with nothing
but the colour notebook clutched in his hands! I don’t blame him… it’s
beautiful. The colours are still vibrant after 200 years. I was kindly given
permission to photograph the facsimile.
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| Marta and Santos, a happy partnership! |
It was also a
pleasure to meet Dr Santos Cirujano Bracamonte, the botanist who has worked
with Marta for the past 27 years. They have collaborated on numerous publications
together, including the complete Aquatic Flora of Iberia. We talked at length
about the relationship between the botanist and illustrator, and the important
role that each plays in telling the story of the plant.
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| Pierre Bonnard- The Palm http://www.wikiart.org/en/pierre-bonnard/the-palm-1926 |
I loved seeing all
the art in the city. As well as visiting the magnificent Prado, we went to see
a truly inspirational Bonnard exhibition. I’ve always loved the work of Les Nabis , and their use of colour and pattern. Bonnard's concept of colour being the composition is a really exciting approach, and both Marta and I were fascinated by the vitality and vigour of his palette.
We had many long conversations about how
to develop an artistic theme and yet remain true to our botanical roots! I
tell you, my mind was buzzing with all these wonderful ideas!
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| One of Martin Chirino's sculptures in his garden |
The highlight of the
week though (yes, even better than the Bauer notebooks!) was meeting Marta’s father, world
renowned sculptor, Martin Chirino and seeing his work. He is extremely charming,
incredibly talented and full of fascinating stories. He told me over lunch that
to be an artist means to “allow yourself to be seduced by an idea, and to be
driven by that desire to capture it”.
Words of wisdom!
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| One of Martin Chirino's exquisite spiral sculptures |
Madrid was definitely an adventure that captivated my imagination. I met so many lovely generous people, ate delicious food and lived my life in colour!
Marta and I are now considering holding Botanical Art Holidays in Spain next year. If you are interested in joining us, please contact me at shevaun.doherty (at) gmail.com
“Travel and a change of place impart new vigour to the mind”
-Seneca
What a wonderful trip, Shevaun! I love reading about your travels. Your blog is always an inspiration. And oh, those color charts!! :)
ReplyDeleteCarol
Thank you Carol!! Those colour charts are pretty special!
DeleteSome exciting trip! Thank you for sharing all this wonderful information. Very inspirational!
ReplyDeleteIt was incredible! They are all such lovely people!
DeleteWhat a wonderfully inspiring weekend! I was interested to hear about Ferdinand Bauer's technique with color charts to insure accuracy. I recently gave a short talk to my local botanical art group on using color charts--it seems we are often on the same path! Best wishes with your workshops in Spain--sounds marvelous!
ReplyDeleteHi Janene, I knew you would love the Bauer notebooks. I'll post more images on the SBA fb page this week. There is a great link here which might help you with your research http://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/conservation-blog/painting-by-numbers-an-18th-century-flower-show
DeleteYour trip sounds amazing, Shevaun! :-) The botanical garden is great and Gui and I really want to go back there! The botanical art holidays sound like an awesome idea too! Loved reading this, very inspirational! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Jess. I'll let you know if we organise something. At the moment we are still just playing with the idea. It would be lovely to meet you and Gui! If you go to the Botanic Gardens again, try to make an appointment to view the archives! They had some zoological drawings too. You can see a lot online if you look at their webpage!
DeleteThat'd be great! :-) And definitely, we would love to meet you too! I wasn't aware you could do that but totally going to try and do that sometime, thanks for letting me know! :-D
DeleteWhat an incredible experience, I am so glad you had the opportunity. Seeing those color charts must have put you in 7th heaven!
ReplyDeleteHaha! You know me too well, Laura!! Those colour charts are amazing! I'm still trying to figure out what mixes he used! I can't quite read the writing and I know that the pigments at the time were limited, but what a range of colours! I'm going to have to keep searching for the answers!!
DeleteI'm so jealous!
ReplyDeleteThere are two new books this fall on the Bauer brothers:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bauers-Joseph-Franz-Ferdinand-Illustrated/dp/3791354892/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1444757797&sr=8-2&keywords=ferdinand+bauer
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Bauer-Brothers-Images-Nature/dp/0565093592/ref=pd_sim_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=06R0YK1WY9KQ2QGPCQ7Z&dpID=51p6stnIdnL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL200_SR160%2C200_
Oh wow! That's great to hear! I'll have to look out for those books! I think the Bauer brothers are my favourite botanical artists! I saw the Flora Graeca here in Dublin at the Botanic Gardens and was just in awe at the quality of the illustrations. Thanks for the links!
DeleteOoh, what fun you must have had! Botanic Art Hoildays in Spain?! Lordy! We're in the UK late May to early June . . . hmmm . . .
ReplyDeleteIt was such fun! The week flew by too quickly! Candice, you must pop over to Dublin when you're in the UK! We could have a painting day together!!
Delete