computerized flowers

March 5, 2010 8:18 AM

Botanical Drawings for the Digital Age "Macoto Murayama can spend months on one of his botanical illustrations, and when he’s done, the plant looks like something that blossomed in outer space."
posted by dhruva (11 comments total)

Gorgeous. They look like ethereal cosmic jellyfish, sublime creatures that might have evolved in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant as in an Iain M. Banks novel, enlightened elder beings that would gladly have shared with us the esoteric secrets of existence that they had carefully gleaned over the billenia if only we hadn't unleashed Jersey Shore upon the universe. Snooki has much to answer for.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:26 AM on March 5, 2010

Wow.
posted by fuq at 9:11 AM on March 5, 2010

Any idea what the actual sizes are of these drawings? I'd like to see a really really huge one.
posted by orme at 9:14 AM on March 5, 2010

I like the fact that they're representations of something real but also so abstract that you almost have to superimpose some image you already have in your head. So, a mandala, a machine, a peacock's tail. Would I like them if I didn't have any background on how they were made? I don't know. Maybe that's not important. They're wonderful to look at.
posted by The Mouthchew at 10:36 AM on March 5, 2010

They are great. It makes me wonder in natural historians are out there working up 3D renders of plants and critters with Blender and SketchUp... Murayama's work is like the digital equivalent of O'Keefe's flowers - not intended to be descriptive, but incredibly descriptive anyhow.
posted by blacksmithtb at 10:51 AM on March 5, 2010

These are really amazing.
posted by ob at 11:05 AM on March 5, 2010

Too much symmetry. I feel like I'm looking at a neon Rorschach.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:10 PM on March 5, 2010

Nice catch, dhruva.

See also:

LACMA's collection of Karl Blossfeldt's botanical photographs, most circa 1928.

Curtis's Botanical Magazine, first published in 1787. Here are 1,048 illustration plates from the first 26 volumes.

And the digital version of Leonhard Fuch's Botany of 1545, featuring 516 woodcuts of plants.
posted by xod at 12:13 PM on March 5, 2010 [4 favorites]

Wow! Love them!
posted by Sublimity at 4:12 PM on March 5, 2010

xod, thanks to you for those links as well. I'm in plant art heaven! Those Blossfeldt photos are just breathtaking.
posted by Sublimity at 4:16 PM on March 5, 2010

Beautiful ! Thanks a lot !
posted by nicolin at 1:33 AM on March 6, 2010