Spanning 3,500 years of art, science, culture, and history, Tree: Exploring the Arboreal World surveys the awe-inspiring beauty and romance of trees.
Forthcoming from Phaidon, the volume includes more than 300 illustrations ranging from ancient wall paintings and botanical illustrations to captivating photography and multimedia work by today’s leading artists.
Lori Nix and Kathleen Gerber, “Library” (2007), archival pigment print, 48 x 60 inches. Image courtesy of Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, and Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, Florida
Tree takes an expansive approach to the topic, introducing scientific and historical inquiry alongside artistic expression and documentation of the planet’s wide variety of species. From a meticulous diorama of an overgrown library by Lori Nix and Kathleen Gerber and patinated metalwork by Shota Suzuki to ancient Egyptian tomb paintings and stunning dragon blood trees photographed by Beth Moon, the book celebrates the myriad ways we are interconnected with trees.
Charles K. Wilkinson, “Funeral Ritual in a Garden” (1921), tempera on paper, 28 × 48 inches. Image courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1930Shota Suzuki, “Heaven and Earth” (2023), copper, brass, nickel silver and patina, 8 × 8 × 8 1/2 inches Image courtesy of the artistMaria Magdalena Campos-Pons, “Secrets of the Magnolia Tree” (2021), watercolor, ink, gouache, and photograph on archival paper, triptych, overall 132 x 90 inches. Image courtesy of Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Gallery Wendi Norris, San FranciscoGary Fabian Miller, “Breathing in the Beech Wood, Homeland, Dartmoor, Twenty-Four Days of Sunlight” (2004), dye destruction prints, 64 x 64 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonTosa Mitsuoki, “Autumn Maples with Poem Slips” (c.1675), ink, colours, gold leaf and gold powder on silk, 56 x 108 inches. Image courtesy of Art Institute of ChicagoSheikh Zain-al-Din, “Brahminy Starling with Two Antheraea Moths, Caterpillar and Cocoon on Indian Jujube Tree” (1777), opaque colors and ink on paper, 30 × 38 inches. Courtesy of Minneapolis Institute of Art
