Martyn Rix is a renowned horticulturalist, and author of many books including The Golden Age of Botanical Art (Andre Deutsch) and editor of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, published by Kew.
It seems odd that a singer, musician, television performer and
sculptor who typified the 1960s as vividly as Rory McEwen should
now be known principally for his botanical paintings. From the
early 1950s until his tragically early death in 1982 he was
everywhere and knew everyone, but as The Colours of Reality shows,
McEwen was never more himself than when working within the
discipline and timeless tradition of an art form that links him
with the greatest flower painters of the past. Not every botanical
painter can count Jim Dine, Joseph Beuys and Ravi Shankar as his
friends, play the 12-string guitar, shoot at Balmoral, influence
Van Morrison, bolster the fortunes of the Wakefield and North of
England Tulip Society and drive a purple Ferrari with ‘Ecosse’ on
the tail. The natural world, though, was his compulsion: I paint
flowers as a way of getting as close as possible to what I perceive
as the truth, my truth of the time in which I live. This mostly
means looking, looking and thinking… It is impossible not to see in
his extraordinary studies of decaying leaves a reflection of his
own mortality, but these are not mere vanitas paintings. He imbued
everything he painted with an anthropomorphic life, and in his
hands a curved stem, a bent head, a wrinkled skin or an infestation
of insects is a celebration of individuality rather than
dispassionate botanical observation.Often the arrangement of plants
seems to speak of relationships - two anemones look like birds
conducting an elaborate courtship ritual, fritillaries are
apparently holding hands - but these are illustrations that need
close scrutiny rather than description. Revised and reprinted after
the hugely successful monographic exhibition at Kew two years ago,
this elegant book with its beautiful reproductions and sumptuous
‘negative spaces’ does full justice not just to the botanical
works, but to the story as a whole of an artist who seems to have
touched the lives of
everyone who ever knew him.
Ask a Question About this Product More... |