The Botanical Photogram: from Scientific Discovery in the 19th Century to the Ecological Perspective in Contemporary Art

This article studies the technical and conceptual evolutions of the botanical photogram, from its scientific origins from life impressions and photogenic drawings, to its recovery in art by the avant-garde and contemporary representations. Analyzes the relationship between image and referent in images of herbaria and how they have evolved both in purpose and approach. From its beginnings, photography longed to reproduce natural reality precisely as a form of support for botany. At a time of unprecedented scientific expansion, the need to record plants quickly and accurately seemed to find the definitive solution in the photogram technique. However, it did not fully meet the expectations of science, so throughout the 19th century, interest in this tool decreased. Currently, this method has experienced a renaissance thanks to artists who reinterpret the photogram as a way to explore nature and generate content around our relationship with the plant world. Photographic chemistry has become part of the content-generating process of the artistic work itself, making us reflect on temporality, materiality and ecology, moving away from its original function of mimesis.