{"id":286,"date":"2012-01-09T06:48:56","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T14:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=286"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:33","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:33","slug":"book-review-mr-marshals-flower-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/book-review-mr-marshals-flower-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Mr. Marshal’s Flower Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOK REVIEW:
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0Mr. Marshal’s Flower Book
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I love garden books so much that my bookshelves are listing under the weight of my collection.\u00a0 Reference volumes have always been in the minority on my shelves because I favor books that go beyond the “how”\u009d of gardening, to the “why”\u009d of gardening.\u00a0 After all, I can do an internet search and find five thousand articles on how to plant a tomato, but I find it infinitely more enlightening to turn to a book like The Sixty-Four Dollar Tomato<\/em> to get a highly personal view on the glories and frustrations of growing tomatoes in the home garden.\u00a0 With time and motivation at a premium, garden literature gives me the inspiration I need to go out and do less-than-inspiring jobs like turning the compost and clipping the privet.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On gift-giving occasions, my family and friends enable my literary habit by presenting me with horticulture-related books.\u00a0 This holiday season, I received an especially winning volume, Mr. Marshal’s Flower Book<\/em>, by Alexander Marshal.\u00a0 The detailed and beautiful flowers that live within its pages have stimulated my mind and soothed my soul.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Alexander Marshal, the seventeenth century author of the Flower Book<\/em>, undoubtedly referred to his magnum opus as a “florilegium,”\u009d a Latin word used to describe a compendium of plant and flower information and\/or illustrations.\u00a0 The tradition of florilegia goes back to at least the fifteenth century and continues to the present day.\u00a0 Notable examples include Hortus Eystettensis<\/em> by Basilius Besler, another early seventeenth work that depicts flowers in the botanical garden developed by the Prince Bishop of Eichstatt in Germany; and the contemporary florilegium commissioned by England’s Prince Charles to celebrate the plants in his garden at Highgrove.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Marshal’s work, devoted to illustrations of flowering species, is the only surviving example of a seventeenth century English florilegium.\u00a0 It was republished in 2008, in a hardcover edition that includes a short biographical chapter and notes about the plants portrayed on the pages.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Biographical information about Marshal is limited, but he was probably born about 1620 and died about 1682.\u00a0 He was a man of wealth and refinement, though it appears that he was a self-taught artist.\u00a0 His friends included many of the intellectual and scientific luminaries of his day, most notably the celebrated John Tradescant, the Younger, whose family museum of curiosities was the foundation of Oxford’s modern day Ashmolean Museum.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the seventeenth century, the gardens of wealthy Englishmen became home to an increasing number of newly introduced plants from the various parts of the world touched by the British, either by exploration, colonization or diplomacy.\u00a0 Marshal included scores of these new plants, along with some English natives, among the 284 plant species in his book.\u00a0 There are tulips and lilacs, originally from the Middle East, for example, and sunflowers from America. \u00a0In keeping with the traditional organization of florilegia, the illustrations are arranged seasonally.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The most amazing thing about those illustrations is the vibrant colors, for which Marshal was celebrated in his own time.\u00a0 Red and yellow flamed tulips pop off the pages and the delicate variations in the shades of ornamental sweet peas are carefully depicted.\u00a0 Some pictures, like those of the “mourning iris”\u009d and common sunflower also feature insects or small mammals, portrayed in the same highly detailed fashion.\u00a0 Marshal painted leaves, flowers and fruit as they were, complete with blemishes and imperfections.\u00a0 One painting of strawberry fruits, stems and leaves depicts a single berry afflicted with the gray mold or botrytis that still causes headaches for home gardeners.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. Marshal’s Flower <\/em>Book was intended to be instructional as well as celebratory.\u00a0 The illustrations allowed his contemporaries–and generations to come–to study all the details of the various plants, including the structures of both new and familiar flowers, leaves and fruits.\u00a0 When I study this florilegium, I long to see my own plants in flower again.\u00a0 To dive into the pages of Mr. Marshal’s Flower <\/em>Book in January and February is to defeat winter–at least for awhile.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOK REVIEW: \u00a0Mr. Marshal’s Flower Book \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I love garden books so much that my bookshelves are listing under the weight of my collection.\u00a0 Reference volumes have always been in the minority on my shelves because I favor books that go beyond the “how”\u009d of gardening, to the “why”\u009d of gardening.\u00a0 After all, I … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1505,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/1505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}