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The earliest illustrated Caribbean botanicals remain among the most remarkable artworks from the 17th and 18th centuries and retain historical value for their identification of indigenous plant and insect species. In conducting this work, European botanists depended on enslaved people to carry equipment, clear forest paths, gather specimens, and identify plant uses. Although the accompanying narratives sometimes acknowledge the involvement of unnamed workers and the medicinal use of plants by local people, those contributions are masked by the splendor and scientific objectivity of the illustrations.
Illustrated botanical works with information on rare exotic specimens helped legitimize the colonial regimes in financing their printing. As the illustrations excelled in botanical exactitude, they obscured the skills of African herbalists on whose unseen labor these landmark books depended. This is the botanical color line, where these books’ qualities concealed the conditions of their production and secured the publications’ status as the epitome of the benefits derived from colonial rule. Join 2023 Lloyd Library Artist-in-Residence Mark Harris, as he addresses how the structure of Caribbean economies ensured this duality and how we should look at these illustrations today.
Mark Harris is a Professor of Art at the University of Cincinnati. He has an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Goldsmiths College, London. His artwork and writing concern the visual culture and literature of intentional communities and avant-garde groups.