Spring and LCSH on Botanical Illustration

I have recently had some very kind praise about earlier entries, so I hope to delight you with a little entry on one of my long time favorite topics, LCSH of course, and Botanical Illustrations!

I adore flowers, pictures of flowers, paintings of flowers, sculptural representations of flowers. I do not like fake flowers. A recent student inquiry about the role of hand drawing botanical species rather than photographing them lead to a great conversation and exploration of the literature of and about botanical illustration.

Where do I always begin? With subject headings, of course! Here is how LCSH represents this topic:

Botanical Illustration
Botanical Illustration Australia
Botanical Illustration Biography
Botanical Illustration Catalogs
Botanical Illustration Early Works To 1800
Botanical Illustration England
Botanical Illustration England London Catalogs
Botanical Illustration Europe
Botanical Illustration Europe History
Botanical Illustration Exhibitions
Botanical Illustration France
Botanical Illustration France History 17th Century
Botanical Illustration Great Britain
Botanical Illustration Handbooks Manuals Etc
Botanical Illustration History
Botanical Illustration Ireland
Botanical Illustration Italy
Botanical Illustration Minnesota History
Botanical Illustration Netherlands Exhibitions
Botanical Illustration North America
Botanical Illustration North America Catalogs
Botanical Illustration Periodicals
Botanical Illustration Technique
Botanical Illustration Technique Juvenile Literature
Botanical Illustration United States

I know that list is a bit long, but each entry is a nice example of how subject headings are subdivided to show the scope of the source as well as the type of source.

The winning subject heading for this title is:

Botanical illustration -- History.

Which is linked to this title:

Saunders, Gill.
Picturing plants: an analytical history of botanical illustration / Gill Saunders.
Chicago ; London : KWS, 2009.

Description 153 p. : col. ill. ; 23 cm.
Published in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Subject Botanical illustration -- England -- London -- Catalogs.
Plants in art.
Botanical illustration -- History.

How perfect is that!


For your further reading pleasure, the American Society of Botanical Artists has several issues of their lovely journal online!!! Get ready to procrastinate!!!

http://huntbot.andrew.cmu.edu/ASBA/ASBA-Journal.html

What, you want more examples of botanical illustration? How about a virtual visit to Botanicus the freely accessible portal to historic botanical literature from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library?

http://www.botanicus.org/browse/year

Happy Spring!