Arts Society — Twigs Way

Arts Society Lecturers and Special Study Day

The Arts Society offers enjoyable opportunities to discover and support the arts of yesterday, today and tomorrow, wherever you are. Their events provide welcoming places – locally, nationally and globally – to hear excellent lecturers share their specialist knowledge about the arts. I am proud to be one of their accredited speakers and delighted to enjoy the opportunities to meet society members and join with them in exploring a range of botanic and flower art related topics. I am currently enjoying enthusing and engaging audiences in person but can also entertain and educate your society via Zoom if preferred.

Planting and painting, cultivating and creating: inspired and influenced by their dedication to painting ‘en plein air’ artists of the Impressionist movement had an especial relationship with gardens and landscape, most famously expressed by Claude Monet (1840-1926) at Giverny. This talk explores that relationship drawing on the wide range of gardens created and depicted by artists including Gustave Caillebotte, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frederick Carl Frieseke, and Pierre Bonnard, placing Giverny and Monet in a wider perspective.

Impressions of Gardens: Gardens of the Impressionists

NOTE: 2026 is the centenary of the death of Claude Monet

(Image Chrysanthemums in the Garden at Petit-Gennevilliers Gustave Caillebotte 1893 MetMuseum Open Access)

1881+Open+Access+NGA+Washington+The+Artsit%27s+Garden+at+V%C3%A9theuil+Claude+Monet.jpg — Worshipped by Aesthetes and cultivated by Impressionists the sunflower casts its golden rays across art and culture. A personification of the divine and the regal, we trace its history from classical myth to twentieth century painting via Van Dyck and Van Gogh, Clytie and Klimt, Monet, Rivera, Wilde and Watts. Green and gold, human and divine, the adoring and the adored, the Sunflower.

The Sunflower in Art and Culture
IMAGE: Claude Monet 1881 The Artist’s Garden at Vétheuil (NGA Washington Open Access)

Special Interest Day:

Sunlight, Sunflowers and Cultivating Colour

Bathed in sunlight this Special Interest Day is themed around the colour yellow, as it weaves its way through, pigment, plants and painting. We will commence our exploration by tracing the use of yellows in art and textiles from the ancient ochre pigments of cave art to through sacred yellow jades. Egyptian orpiment, and Georgian silks, through to the yolk-coloured interiors of Victorian fashions. The Sunflower will take us on our next journey tracing its divine arc through art and culture from the Aztecs, to Apollo, to the canvases of van Dyke and van Gogh, a symbol of the divine and the cycle of life. Bringing heaven to earth will be the topic of the final part of our day as we expand our colour palette and weave the threads of painting, planting and Impressionism - reaching back into the earth where we started.

Image: Odilon Redon : 1901 Madame Arthur Fontaine (Marie Escudier, 1865–1946) Met Museum

An unconventional life painting exotic and rare plants in their native lands. Living and travelling with the ‘liberty of a wild bird’, but maintaining the dress and manners of a Victorian lady. The pursuit of plants took her around the world whilst her paintings were destined for Kew. This talk explores Marianne North’s work, her social context and the eventual creation of her gallery at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.

Marianne North: Victorian Botanical Painter and Traveller

Scandal, politics, botany, art and wit - this talk has it all! Following the life of the ‘grotto nymph’ and creator of botanic paper mosaicks, Mary Delany. Feted by Erasmus Darwin, acclaimed by Sir Joseph Banks and personal friend of Queen Charlotte, after a life of gardening and ‘shell work’ she embarked, aged 72, on a fabulous Flora of paper portrayals of exotic plants. Heavily illustrated talk drawing on Mary Delany’s own words.

Mary Delany (1700-1788) and her ‘Paper Mosaics’

van+Ossterwijck.001.jpg — A visually stunning overview of the role of female artists in floral and botanic art from the 16th to the 19th century. Often condemmed as a ‘Pleasing Pastime’ for ladies of leisure this highly illustrated talk including works by both ‘amateur’ and professinal female artists including Giovanna Garzonni, Maria van Oosterwijck, Rachel Ruysch, Elizabeth Blackwell, Mary Moser, Augusta Withers,. We will consider themes including perceived divisions between floral and botanic art, the amateur and the professional, and of course the vexed question of marriage!

Women, Botany and Art: From the Garden to the Easel

One of the most extraordinary women of the 17th century. Born into a family of artists, Mira Sibylla Merian left behind her marriage and her work as a successful flower painter, to sail to Surinam in pursuit of rarities of flora and fauna, and produced the famous ‘Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinam’. Her illustrations were sought by collectors and royalty throughout Europe, whilst her scientific observations stunned the world.

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717): Artist, Scientist and Adventurer