The Learned Pig

Art – Thinking – Nature – Writing

Tag: botany

  • Enemy of the State

    Enemy of the State

    Botanical illustrations of the early modern period (1550-1800), the “big science” of their day, served as documentation of useful plants found in colonial territories. Plants such as tobacco, sugar cane, cinnamon, cotton and tea were but a few items deemed reliable “cash crops” during this era of global economic expansion. Botanical illustrations led the way…

  • Notes from the Field

    Notes from the Field

    An amateur entomological and botanical study in four locations, at five different times of day, by artist Anna Garrett.

  • The Beast is not only the Tiger

    The Beast is not only the Tiger

    The top floor of a modernist apartment block seems an unlikely location for the studio of an artist best-known for his engagement with botany. Nonetheless this is where we find Alberto Baraya, one of Colombia’s most prominent contemporary artists: his working environment not the cavernous white-walled spaces favoured by Bogotá’s other leading practitioners, but a…