“All the mushrooms” is a composition of hundreds of different mushrooms. The original graphic illustrations come from Emile Boudier’s famous work “Icones mycologicae ou iconographie des champignons de France” from the beginning of the 20th century.
The individual drawings are each a work of art in their own right and impress with their attention to detail and accuracy. Considered the best of his time, Boudier’s illustrations remain contemporary and beautiful to look at.
In the project “All the mushrooms” from our “digital foraging” series, we used all the mushrooms from the first two volumes (of a total of 3) respective the plates 1 – 421 of his main work.
High resolution print
The full-resolution of the composite is 12000 x 18000 pixels. Large-scale poster prints and wall decorations are easily possible.
Poster variations
We have created two more compositions that show fewer types of mushrooms, but give the selected mushrooms more space.
“digital foraging”
“digital foraging” is a term I use to describe the practice of researching and reusing freely available data from scientific databases and historical records.
Looking for historical pictures of fish, mushrooms or the like awakens similar instincts in me.
There are many great works of art and science burried in archivs and databases just waiting to be re-discovered. I especially like the connection between these two genres and lithographic projects from centuries past appeal to me in particular. I am happy to rediscover these “treasures” in order to create something new from them.
The original Illustrations of Emile Bourdier
The original work by Emile Boudier “Icones mycologicae ou iconographie des champignons de France, principalement Discomycètes” includes 600 watercolor plates, each of which is a small work of art. Each mushroom was usually shown in several views on one page.
Of course, the work does not include all mushrooms known today. But if you’re not exactly a mycologist, you’ll find pretty much all common edible mushrooms and also toadstools that you can encounter in everyday life in Europe.
However, the scientific terms and classifications that Boudier used are no longer up-to-date and some research is required to correctly assign many of the illustrations.
Below I would like to give some examples of the original drawings used here.
Let us know what you think of these images and feel free to give us suggestions on which topics we should delve into next.
