Through September 6, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Maximus Gallery is showing a collection of gardening catalogs spanning from 1612 to the end of the 19th century. In modern times, a catalog might be considered a mundane object, a mere list of items that we now take for granted, but through viewing this exhibit, one comprehends the wonder that these catalogs and the plants they depicted evoked among people in Europe and the Americas for centuries. They communicate both an intimate knowledge of botany and the painstaking work involved in representing plants in an appealing manner.
The art in these catalogs is often highly elaborate. In 17th-century catalogs such as the Florilegium of Dutch nurseryman Emanuel Sweert (1552-1612), plants are usually etched side by side in intricate black-and-white detail. By the 19th century, nearly all of the catalogs were hand-painted or later printed in bright colors. Images are often accompanied by prose at the intersection between scientific fact and religious faith. In one such description, British gardener and naturalist George Loddiges (1784/1786-1846) writes of the Chinese Hibiscus that “its blossoms are beautiful, and give us another instance of the goodness of our gracious Creator.”
Maximus Gallery curator Linda Miller emphasizes the importance of appreciating not only the artistic and scientific value of the items in the exhibition, but also the amount of time and effort that went into their creation: by the botanists who carefully uncovered worlds beneath the petals of countless species; by the painters who with their brushes carried those worlds from the soil and laid them gently upon sheets of paper; and by the horticulturalists who established great gardens, incubating flora from around a world in which many places were still mostly known only by stories beheld in amazement.