[TheForge] on and off topic- botanical forms

[Bruce Freeman]

I think I've seen Blossfeldt's books being sold at Gichner's.
Impressive.  But what I noted is that while he pointed out wonderful
forms to people, he is scarcely the only publisher of such beautiful
forms - if you bother to look at them that way.

Go to any used bookstore and look for any botanical book.  Some may be
shelved under gardening or horticulture, some under science/botany.
Many many beautiful forms can be found there.

But moreover, just GO OUTSIDE!  The world is filled with these forms.
Many of them we call "weeds".  Take a magnifying glass to see some of
the smaller ones more clearly.

On a slightly different note, I should add that, having had a bit of
an education in biology, I'm mildly a stickler for accuracy in
biological forms.  Go ahead and invent all the dragons, leaves and
flowers you want, but if you want them to look natural, you should at
least have an inkling what natural looks like.

I was quite amused a few years ago when a blacksmith who shall remain
nameless here produced a gate ornamented with "cattails" with leaves
very cleverly made of angle iron.  The angle iron facilitated getting
a long, folded leaf with a prominent back rib.  Very attractive.  Too
bad cattails don't have leaves like that (they're actually flat, no
fold).

On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 12:50 PM, lee robbins <naturadoc1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> With Bruce Freeman's recommendation of that great garden tool book, and tempering tools i wanted to share this website. there are daily botanical images that usually are geared to interesting morphologies.
>
> A great book of images is Karl Blossfeldt, Art forms in nature ,( Schirmer art books, New York, ISBN 3-88814-627-5 )very intimate black and white views of blooms and seed pods and repetitive leaves. The plasticity of steel that permits it to have warmth and organic life imbued and frozen is the special appeal to me.
>
> the images can be spectacular on this site
>
> http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/2009/03/erythrina_coralloides.php
>
> Lee
>
>
>
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-- 
Bruce
NJ

The total lack of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is working.