The Golden Age Of Flowers

The seventeenth century heralded a golden age of exploration, as intrepid travelers sailed around the world to gain firsthand knowledge of previously unknown continents. These explorers also collected the world’s most beautiful flora, and often their findings were recorded for posterity by talented professional artists. The Golden Age of Botanical Art tells the story of these exciting plant-hunting journeys and marries it with full-color reproductions of the stunning artwork they produced. Covering work through the nineteenth century, this lavishly illustrated book offers readers a look at 250 rare or unpublished images by some of the world’s most important botanical artists. Truly global in its scope, The Golden Age of Botanical Art features work by artists from Europe, China, and India, recording plants from places as disparate as Africa and South America. Martyn Rix has compiled the stories and art not only of well-known figures—such as Leonardo da Vinci and the artists of Empress Josephine Bonaparte—but also of those adventurous botanists and painters whose names and work have been forgotten. A celebration of both extraordinarily beautiful plant life and the globe-trotting men and women who found and recorded it, The Golden Age of Botanical Art will enchant gardeners and art lovers alike.

The 17th and 18th centuries saw a 'flowering' of botanical illustration and witnessed the production of some of the greatest books of plant illustration ever produced. The Golden Age of Flowers presents over 100 of the most beautiful flower images from this period.

‘The Flower Book’ is a charming volume, containing poems, stories and anecdotes about the wonderful array of British plants and flowers. It was written by Constance Armfield, and illustrated by Maxwell Armfield, and contains four sections: ‘The Meadows and Coppice’, ‘The Hedge’, ‘The Garden, ‘The Pool’, and The Herb Patch.’ In these sections, one can find stories and drawings regarding Snowdrops, Violets, Daffodils, Primroses, Buttercups, Bluebells, Honeysuckle, Tulips, Roses, Iris, Nasturtium, and many more. Maxwell Ashby Armfield (1881 – 1972) was an English artist, illustrator and writer. He was linked to the Arts and Crafts Movement, and studied painting in Paris. In 1909, he married the author and playwright, Constance Smedley, and from that point on, the two became close collaborators. This book is no exception, and showcases their combined knowledge of design, illustration and text. Maxwell Armfield’s drawings are presented alongside Constance Armfield’s ‘Flower Book’ – so that the two further refine and enhance the other. Pook Press celebrates the great ‘Golden Age of Illustration‘ in children’s literature – a period of unparalleled excellence in book illustration. We publish rare and vintage Golden Age illustrated books, in high-quality colour editions, so that the masterful artwork and story-telling can continue to delight both young and old.

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, wall charts were a familiar classroom component, displaying scientific images at a large scale, in full color. But it's only now that they've been superseded as a teaching tool that we have begun to realize something their ubiquity hid: they are stunning examples of botanical art at its finest. This beautifully illustrated oversized book gives the humble wall chart its due, reproducing more than two hundred of them in dazzling full color. Each wall chart is accompanied by captions that offer accessible information about the species featured, the scientists and botanical illustrators who created it, and any particularly interesting or innovative features the chart displays. And gardeners will be pleased to discover useful information about plant anatomy and morphology and species differences. We see lilies and tulips, gourds, aquatic plants, legumes, poisonous plants, and carnivorous plants, all presented in exquisite, larger-than-life detail. A unique fusion of art, science, and education, the wall charts gathered here offer a glimpse into a wonderful scientific heritage and are sure to thrill naturalists, gardeners, and artists alike.

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be…” - Robert Browning It is magnificent to grow old! Your grey hairs are your best asset! Old age is the best age for achievements in life. Many people live life with a wish list but only a few truly live with a precise philosophy. Dr.Noel in his book Glorious Golden Age, reveals the secrets to joy, peace and fulfilment in the golden years. He illustrates them through the lives and virtues of eminent philosophers, great authors, heroes and legendary personalities from across the world who have lived exemplary lives as trendsetters and role models for humanity. Your retirement at the age of fifty or sixty from an active life is the beginning of a new venture, a golden era and an amazing period of success and achievement. Start planning your life with purpose and long-term goals for a socially rewarding life! To enjoy your golden years, it is important that you define your life’s philosophy! Don’t lose time. Hurry up!

Unique anthology presents scores of color and black-and-white artworks by 22 of the best women illustrators of the early 20th century, including Beatrix Potter, Kate Greenaway, and Jessie Willcox Smith.

In the 1630s the Netherlands was gripped by tulipmania: a speculative fever unprecedented in scale and, as popular history would have it, folly. We all know the outline of the story—how otherwise sensible merchants, nobles, and artisans spent all they had (and much that they didn’t) on tulip bulbs. We have heard how these bulbs changed hands hundreds of times in a single day, and how some bulbs, sold and resold for thousands of guilders, never even existed. Tulipmania is seen as an example of the gullibility of crowds and the dangers of financial speculation. But it wasn’t like that. As Anne Goldgar reveals in Tulipmania, not one of these stories is true. Making use of extensive archival research, she lays waste to the legends, revealing that while the 1630s did see a speculative bubble in tulip prices, neither the height of the bubble nor its bursting were anywhere near as dramatic as we tend to think. By clearing away the accumulated myths, Goldgar is able to show us instead the far more interesting reality: the ways in which tulipmania reflected deep anxieties about the transformation of Dutch society in the Golden Age. “Goldgar tells us at the start of her excellent debunking book: ‘Most of what we have heard of [tulipmania] is not true.’. . . She tells a new story.”—Simon Kuper, Financial Times

The sacred Flower of Life pattern, the primary geometric generator of all physical form, is explored in even more depth in this volume, the second half of the famed Flower of Life workshop. The proportions of the human body, the nuances of human consciousness, the sizes and distances of the stars, planets and moons, even the creations of humankind, are all shown to reflect their origins in this beautiful and divine image. Through an intricate and detailed geometrical mapping, Drunvalo Melchizedek shows how the seemingly simple design of the Flower of Life contains the genesis of our entire third-dimensional existence. From the pyramids and mysteries of Egypt to the new race of Indigo children, Drunvalo presents the sacred geometries of the Reality and the subtle energies that shape our world. We are led through a divinely inspired labyrinth of science and stories, logic and coincidence, on a path of remembering where we come from and the wonder and magic of who we are. Finally, for the first time in print, Drunvalo shares the instructions for the Mer-Ka-Ba meditation, step-by-step techniques for the re-creation of the energy field of the evolved human, which is the key to ascension and the next dimensional world.if done from love, this ancient process of breathing prana opens up for us a world of tantalizing possibility in this dimension, from protective powers to the healing of oneself, of others and even of the planet. Embrace the expanded vision and understanding that Drunvalo offers to the world. Coincidences abound, miracles flourish and the amazing stories of mysteries unveiled arise as the author probes the Ancient Secrets of the Flower of Life.

The first full-scale treatment of Robinson's early output, this anthology features more than 100 images from fairy tales, children's literature, and works by Shakespeare, Kipling, and Poe, many in full glorious color.