Nature has always inspired us humans in our creation. The infinitely varied and repetitive forms appeals to us through sensuality, variety and richness of colour. Plants can be depicted with scientific accuracy or be abstracted into decorative patterns and ornaments. Throughout history, we encounter the flower and the plant in widely diverse fields such as folk art, fashion, textiles and design. In depictions of plants we see the complex nature through the organizing human eye, and the image is characterized by choices and unavoidable simplifications.
In the exhibition we see a selection of drawings from Teckningsmuseet’s collection. We see carefully made drawings from the 1800s by young women from bourgeois homes, most drawn after pictures, a standard training method for the time where you copy an image in which the aesthetic choices and simplifications already have been made. A typical handcraft was allowed to take its time, with care of the material, the pen and the paper. The drawings from the 1900s is characterized by greater individualism and by more and freer choices, where the artists’ concentrated work captures the plants’ lines and shapes through the spur of the moment.
Drawing above: Jenny Hyllengren, circa 1850.