writings selected but also in the selection ofthem.

In the case of Williams’ book, so muchis provided that intelligent readers will beable to deploy the ideas discussed in onepart against those recorded in others. Inthis second volume that would be harder toachieve, given that it begins with modern-ism. Also, the editors provide surprisinglylittle in the way of setting or commentary.There is a four-page general introduction,then section introductions of one or sopages. The book is primarily a text sourcefor an Open University course and stu-dents will have access to supportingmaterial, but it claims also to be ‘a free-standing volume that will be of interest tothe general reader’. Such a reader wouldreasonably expect more in the way of gene-ral introduction and particular guidance tothe, sometimes difficult, selections.

Williams provides this in part, and hewould do students and general readers agreat service if he were now to compose ananthology of sources to accompany hisown fine introduction. I know of nothingexisting at present that has the coverage.Tatarkiewicz’s invaluable three volumeHistory of Aesthetics (1970–4; reprinted byThoemmes in 1999) interweaves sourcesand commentary but it ends in 1700 and isvery expensive. There is an opportunitywhich I hope will not be missed.

john haldane

University of St Andrews, and a past Fellow ofthe Henry Moore Institute in Leeds

MARGARET MEE’S AMAZON

FLOWERS: DIARIES OF AN

ARTIST EXPLORER

margaret mee

Antique Collectors’ Club in association with TheRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew 2004 d29.50 $59.50304 pp. 350 col/20 mono illusisbn 1-85149-454-5

Botanical artists seldom have diffi-culties in locating specimens be-cause common plants offer the

same structural and aesthetic challengesas showy exotics. Or do they? There issomething beguiling about the idea ofintrepid traveller-artists, braving the un-known to locate new and spectacular flora,and once one knows the stories behindplant collection, they infiltrate our recep-tion of images.

The life and work of Margaret Mee, andher explorations in the Amazon rain-forests, imbue her art with special mean-ing and, in days of threat to that grandecosystem, her imagery carries particu-lar poignancy. Thus it is that the publica-tion of this beautifully designed book offlower paintings, diaries and documentaryphotographs is an act of advocacy as muchas aesthetics.

Botany has proved to be such a richdiscipline for intelligent, artistically giftedwomen who do not want to restrictthemselves to either art or science. Itis a meeting point for minds that res-pect disciplined, analytical thinking aswell as the visual imagination. The bestbotanical artists probe the boundaries

of descriptive illustrationand animate structuraldrawing with a sensitiveunderstanding of plantcharacter. Like all goodportrait artists they infusetheir plant portraits withqualities such as grace,flamboyance or flirtatious-ness, which lie beneath themere appearance of leaves,petals and stamens. Suchartists possess insight aswell as powers of acuteobservation.

In Margaret Mee’s case,her visual imaginationwas stimulated by numer-ous experiences of Amazo-nia. Her travels – 15 majorexpeditions – were under-taken between 1956 and

1988, the year of her death at the ageof 79 in a car crash, ironically in Leices-tershire, far from the dangers associatedwith Amazonas. Mee’s success as a bota-nical artist owes much to her art training –to the years she spent at Watford Schoolof Art and then, as a mature studentafter the war, at St. Martin’s School ofArt and Camberwell School of Art,where she studied under Victor Pasmore.Thoroughly conversant with image-making, once she settled in Brazil themiddle-aged Margaret Mee located thesubjects that were to give her art focus anddistinction; she fell in love with flower-ing plants.

This book is not a book on botanicalart. It is a book about Margaret Mee,largely by Mee, speaking through herdiaries and the eloquence of her plantstudies. It has three short prefaces byGhillean T Prance, Richard Evans Shultesand Roberto Burle Marx, an epilogue byjournalist Robert MacNeil, a good selec-tion of maps that testify to the epic natureof Mee’s travels, and a section offeringbotanical descriptions of some of theplants Mee depicted.

Mee is a modest, conscientious recor-der rather than a brilliant travel writer, butshe possesses a keen eye for detail. Herstyle is almost laconic. She describespeople, places and plants with the samereserve that she accords to dramatic eventsor sights unusual to Western eyes. Welearn of the hazards of flying in smallBrazilian aircraft:

The baggage and cargo stowed in the aircraftincluded the gruesome and bloody carcass of anox, the hoofs sticking out stiffly from the torncorpse. Later it became fly-ridden and thepassengers crowded as far away as possiblefrom the sickening sight and smell. The meatwas destined for Indian villages along our routeand at each stop chunks were thrown out on tothe airstrips.

As well as contending with the diffi-culties of reaching destinations in theheart of the vast Brazilian river system,Mee negotiated the difficulties of paintingin dank rainforests. In Aripuana she notesthat she was plagued by biting flies, andcomments:

First I attempted working with a veil andwearing gloves, but both of these distorted mydrawing and anyway the veil mesh was too openand so the flies frisked in and out in triumph.My left eye suffered particularly badly, becom-ing very swollen. In the end all I could do to

Margaret Mee,Psittacanthuscintus, 1982.

32 The ArtBook volume 12 issue 3 august 2005 r bpl/aah

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ward off the attacks was to wrap my hands inplastic. In spite of them I finished the painting Ihad set myself . . .

Inevitably one ‘sees’ Mee’s trials andtribulations when studying her deftlyexecuted watercolours.

The paintings tend to fall into twogroups. She shows her skills as ananalytical eye – the botanical artist exam-ining specimens to discern structure,diagnostic features, colour and character,and the imaginative artist representingplants in situ in overwhelmingly green,dense forests. The latter poetically rein-force notions of the primal jungle. Thehigh quality of Mee’s art lies not in herability to draw outlines accurately –botanists do this effectively – but in hersensitive manipulation of tone, especiallyon the repetitive forms of leaves. She giveseach leaf a position in space articulated bythe fall of light and the rhythms of itsprofile, and she makes each coloured petala fragile, luminous accent.

The success of this beautiful booklies in the fact that it has dared to bemore than a collection of botanicalstudies, and it deserves a diverse read-ership. Mee challenges conventions ofbotanical art and, when her imagery isintegrated with authorial authority in herjournals, the range of her responses tospectacular landscape and exotic florais readily apparent. The artist’s life andher creative transformation of her visionconnect.

In the late 1970s Mee became increas-ingly articulate about environmental de-gradation and the terrible destruction ofthe Amazon rainforests. In her 1977 diaryshe wrote:

Beyond the rocks the journey was unrewardingand depressing. I went into the forest beyond afacade of live trees and was appalled at what Isaw – an area of death. There was not a spotof green to be seen. The trees which were notalready leeched out and crumbling looked sick,the bark peeling and rolling off the trunks. Astrange chemical smell hung in the air. I wadedthrough piles of dead leaves up to my knees andfelt contaminated by them. . . . I felt certain thatsome diabolical defoliant had been sprayedover the area.

This description is not a figment ofimagination. The writer is not Tolkienexercising his imagination to evoke evilplaces but Mee, reporting facts. Herwords, juxtaposed with her visual tran-scriptions of the Amazon’s floral beauty,are timely reminders of the devastation

callous, greedy humankind renders sorapidly on fragile ecosystems in the nameof ‘development’.

marion arnold

Independent scholar

THE LIFE OF ST EDMUND, KING

AND MARTYR: JOHN LYDGATE’S

ILLUSTRATED VERSE LIFE

PRESENTED TO HENRY VI

a facsimile of british library

ms harley 2278, with an

introduction by a s g edwards

The British Library 2004 d50 $100265 pp. 120 col illus/119 folio facsimilesisbn 0 7123 4871 9

US dist. University of Toronto Press

On Christmas Eve, 1433, the 12-year-old Henry VI and his retinuearrived at the Benedictine Abbey

of Bury St Edmund’s and were welcomedby Abbot William Curteys. The royal partystayed there until the following Easter.In these years of Henry’s minority, thehumiliating military defeats and domes-tic strife that were to characterise hisreign still lay in the future. The youngking had only recently become the first(and only) English monarch to be crown-ed ‘King of France’ in Paris, and thosein charge of his government actedwith reasonable effectiveness. At BurySt Edmund’s, Henry was able to spendtime in devotions at the Abbey (hispiety was already prodigious) as wellas to indulge in the pleasures of hunt-ing and falconry at the Abbot’s countryseat of Elmswell.

To commemorate the royal visit, Henrywas presented with a specially commis-sioned life of St Edmund of East Anglia,‘kyng martir and vyrgyne.’ The saint hadbeen murdered by the Danes in 869 andhis bones were enshrined in the Abbeychurch. The life also dealt with the moreobscure St Fremund, reputedly a relationof St Edmund. Shortly after defeating theDanes in battle, he himself won a martyr’scrown when Oswy beheaded him while hewas in prayer.

The text was written by a member ofthe monastic community at Bury StEdmund’s – the poet, John Lydgate. Hereferred to the work as a ‘translacion,’although his sources are unknown. Thelife of the holy King was, however, wellknown. In the 980s, Abbo of Fleury hadproduced his Passio sancti Edmundi, whichwas translated into Old English by Aelfric

of Eynsham before the turn of themillennium. The legend was further elabo-rated by Geoffrey Gaimar, Geoffrey deFontibus, Roger of Wendover and a late-fourteenth-century collection of Edmun-dian material (MS Bodley 240). As amember of the community that lookedafter the saint’s shrine, Lydgate wouldhave been familiar with these traditions.

Curteys’ commissioning of this volumewas, of course, a highly appropriategesture. The life brought honour to theKing by celebrating one of his saintedpredecessors, and it brought honour tothe Abbey by increasing the prestige ofits patron, and proving its close con-nections to the Crown. With hindsight,the presentation of this volume takeson added significance. Nearly 40 yearslater, the King died in mysterious circum-stances at the Tower of London, almostcertainly murdered by order of Edward IV.After his death, pilgrims flocked to histomb, first at Chertsey and later Windsor,where they sought the intercessionof ‘Good King Henry’ – a royal ‘martyr’just as efficacious as St Edmund. Henry VIIinaugurated the process for his canoni-sation in Rome, and it is likely that thiswould have been granted had it notbeen for the Protestant Reformation. Thesubject and owner of this book had muchin common.

The volume presented to the youngKing, kept in the British Library since 1753(Harley MS 2278), has been reproduced ina beautiful facsimile edition and is noweasily accessible to scholars and generalreaders alike. There are many reasonswhy this should be welcomed. The 3,773-line poem itself, written in Rhyme Royalstanzas, marks an important stage inthe development of English language andliterature, but what is particularly strikingis the close correlation of literature andart in this volume. A S G Edwards states,in his informative introduction, that themanuscript is ‘one of the most remarkablesurviving illustrated manuscripts of Mid-dle English verse in the fifteenth century’.The 120 illustrations form, to a largeextent, a coherent narrative sequence,closely linked to Lydgate’s poem. Someare compound pictures, containing morethan one scene. Folio 67V, for example, isparticularly effective, showing the discov-ery of St Edmund’s head and the restora-tion of it to his body, with the same monk(dressed in a pink belt and blue collar).Elsewhere, there is continuity in the visual

volume 12 issue 3 august 2005 r bpl/aah The ArtBook 33

Reviews