Botanical Revolutions: How Plants Changed the Course of Art

This groundbreaking volume unearths the representation of plants and their vital impact on art, thereby advocating for the botanical world’s legitimate place in art history.

Desired for their aesthetic beauty, sought after for their medicinal properties, harvested for their scents and flavors, or grown as essential material resources, plants are indissolubly entwined with our existence. In art it is no different: plants have played a critical role. Yet despite their significant material and conceptual contributions, plants have been sidelined in the commentary of art historians and critics.

Botanical Revolutions presents a global history of plants in art, focusing on the crucial moments that signaled the formation of new movements and styles, as well as the creation of media that could not have occurred without the involvement of and interaction with the vegetal world. In this fascinating and beautifully illustrated book, author Giovanni Aloi delves deeply into the history and representation of plants in art, advocates for a change in our relationship with the botanical world, and presents an alternative history of art that foregrounds the truly indispensable contributions of plants.