Text-fig. 88. “Arum” = Arum maculatum L., Wild Arum [Fuchs, De historia stirpium, 1542]. Reduced.
The figures here reproduced show how great a variety of subjects were successfully dealt with in Fuchs’ work. The Cabbage (Text-fig. [30]) is realised in a way that brings home to us the intrinsic beauty of this somewhat prosaic subject. In the Wild Arum (Text-fig. [88]) the fruit and a dissection of the inflorescence are represented, so that, botanically, the drawing reaches a high level. Fuchs’ wood-cuts are nearly all original, but that of the White Waterlily appears to have been founded upon Brunfels’ figure.
We have so far spoken, for the sake of brevity, as if Fuchs actually executed the figures himself. This, however, was not the case. He employed two draughtsmen, Heinrich Füllmaurer, who drew the plants from nature, and Albrecht Meyer, who copied the drawings on to the wood, and also an engraver, Veit Růdolf Speckle, who actually cut the blocks. Fuchs evidently delighted to honour his colleagues, for at the end of the book there are portraits of all three at work (Text-fig. [89]). The artist is drawing a plant with a brush fixed in a quill.
The drawing and painting of flowers is sometimes dismissed almost contemptuously, as though it were a humble art in which an inferior artist, incapable of the more exacting work of drawing “from the life,” might be able to excel. The falsity of this view is shown by the fact that the greatest of flower painters have generally been men who also did admirable figure work. Fantin-Latour is a striking modern instance, and one has but to glance at the studies of Leonardo da Vinci (e.g. Plate [XVIII]) and Albrecht Dürer (e.g. Plate [XVII]) to feel that the finest plant drawings can only be produced by a master hand, capable of achieving success on more ambitious lines. The wood-engravings in Fuchs’ herbal are a case in point. The portraits which also illustrate the book (Frontispiece and Text-fig. [89]) show that the talents of the artists whom he employed were not confined to plant drawing, but were also strong in the direction of vigorous and able portraiture.
Text-fig. 89. The Draughtsmen and the Engraver employed by Leonhard Fuchs [De historia stirpium, 1542]. Reduced.