Botanical illustration, a craze that combines art and science
Originating in the Middle Ages, paintings that accurately reproduce the shapes of plants and flowers are an important tool for botanists - and have become fashionable thanks to their beauty.
In this program, Marcelo Marthe visits the artist Cecilia Tomasi, a specialist in a traditional form of painting that combines art and science: botanical illustration. In her studio in São Paulo, she explains the history and technical secrets of these watercolors that accurately reproduce the shapes and structures of plants and flowers. Essential for several centuries for the scientific cataloging of plants, botanical illustrations have become a popular genre of painting thanks to the work of artists such as the Englishwoman Margaret Mee.