P I E R R E-J O S E P H R E D O U T É
M A C OTO M U R AYA M A
Rosa centifolia: Rosier à cent feuilles, c. 1827 Colour-printed, hand-finished stipple engraving, 23 x 32 cm / 9 x 12⅔ in RHS, Lindley Library, London
Rose iii 2008 Digital C–Print, 56 x 45.7 cm / 22 x 18 in Private Collection,
When Marie Joseph Rose de Tascher de la Pagerie, widowed Viscountess Beauharnais, generally known as Joséphine, got remarried, her husband Napoleon Bonaparte, a general six years her junior, was still on the way to the stars. On 2 December 1804 he crowned her Empress of the French in Paris. Four months later she made Pierre-Joseph Redouté ‘plant painter of
her Majesty’ with a salary of 18.000 francs p. a., then a gigantic sum. At that moment the publication of the ‘Jardin de la Malmaison’, a work on Joséphine’s garden in Malmaison near Paris, was approaching its completion. It was lavishly illustrated with colour printed stipple engravings based on watercolours by Redouté and descriptions by Pierre-Étienne
4
Ventenat. However, ‘Les roses’ became Redouté’s most popular work, again illustrated with colour printed stipple engravings based on his watercolours with descriptions by Claude Antoine Thory added. In this case the association with Joséphine was only indirect: she had died on 29 May 1814 in Malmaison and the roses documented by Redouté came from various rose
The plant world has long provided a rich source of inspiration for architects but the Japanese architect turned artist Macoto Muryama takes his fascination into a luminous digital world. Using 3D software his hand drawn anatomical studies of dissected plant structures and flower organs are rendered with an almost engineered mathematical exactness, like
blueprints for an unseen creator in an alien world. Extending the conventions of architectural drawing, multiple viewpoints of elevation and plan are fused within the single image, often including dimensional information and labelling. The diaphanous linear mesh describes unfolding clusters of petals wrapped around the stamens and anthers, empowering the viewer with
5
x-ray vision. The ability to ascribe colour to individual parts and lines allows Muryama to present us with a fusion of technological analysis and romantic artistry. In Rose iii, the flower takes on an almost balletic swirl in which the tulle like petals delicately enmesh the fragile flower organs within. Being created as a three dimensional file, the artist is able to rotate and present