JAMES LANGLEY

American Artist Drawing Magazine / Fall 2009 Issue

American Artist / Drawing Magazine Fall 2009 Edition: "Express The Universal" article by Bob Bahr on the drawing of James Langley. 

  

Ars Botanica / Botanical Studies

Botanical Studies / Langley Art Studio / New Release

"We ought to talk less and draw more. I personally, should like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say in sketches." Goethe, Italian Journey (London: Penquin, 1962) 9.

Inspired by Goethe's empirical approach to the study of nature, Langley Art Studio's advocates the practice of drawing as an act of understanding and a way to penetrate the outward surface appearances of things and to discover their underlying structure.

We have recently begun a suite of scientific illustrations with the aim to integrate empirical and descriptive exploration with decorative intent as inspired by Antique Botanical Studies.

The Langley watercolor renderings presented in the Botanical Studies Gallery are "in the school of" Giovanni Baptista Ferrari (1584-1655) a Jesuit Priest, the first of whose elaborately illustrated books on botanical subjects, "Flora seu de florum cultura libri IV"  was published in Rome, 1638 under the patronage of Cardinal Francesco Barberini.