Not Just Pretty Flowers: The Challenge of Botanical Art // TRAIN BRAIN

Not Just Pretty Flowers: The Challenge of Botanical Art

Dive into the MFA’s collection of prints and drawings to see how and why artists over centuries have approached documenting flowers through different artistic mediums and techniques. Discovering more about the historic agency of women artists and scientists in the field.
Meghan Melvin, Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, MFA
Wednesday, May 6, 2026

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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Lessons in Color: Divine Visions and a Material History of Indian Painting

Where Emperors Strolled: East Asian Imperial Gardens

Not Just Pretty Flowers: The Challenge of Botanical Art

The Camera in the Garden

Porcelain and Plants: Decorative Arts and Garden Inspiration

Camille Monet

Are Gardens Art?

Forms of Modernism: Materials and Meaning in 20th-Century Sculpture

Mark Rothko: The Simple Expression of the Complex Thought

Modernism at the MFA: Beyond Sight

Beyond Reality: Surrealism in the 20th century

A Gilded Age Garden Tour of Newport, Rhode Island

MFA Member Lectures: Framing Nature

Edo and Tokyo: Built, Inhabited, and Represented

Martin Puryear and Craft

María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Her ‘History of a People Who Were Not Heroes’

The Calm of Homer’s ‘Blue Boat’

Martin Puryear’s Liberties

MFA Member Lectures: Rachel Ruysch

Ana Mendieta and María Magdalena Campos-Pons: A Shared Portrait

Living: A House, A Garden, An Aquarium, and More

Art in the Age of Napoleon: Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment

The Napoleonic Empire and its Discontents

The Influence of Historical Dutch Art on Van Gogh

Up Close and Personal with the MFA’s Van Gogh Portraits

Van Gogh, the Roulin Family, and Portraiture

Between Rembrandt and Van Gogh: 19th-Century Dutch Artists

Van Gogh: “How did he make those colors?”

A Bounty for the Senses: The Flavors, Tastes, and Scents of Provence

Van Gogh and The "Mad Genius" Debate

Van Gogh: Expressionist Portraiture and Self-Portraiture

Color, Light, Place: Rana Begum

Van Gogh in Provence

Meet the Postman Joseph Roulin

MFA Member Lectures: Van Gogh: Roulin Family Portraits

John Wilson: A Special Way of Looking at the World

Encounters with ‘Eternal Presence’

Meet Vincent van Gogh

Van Gogh’s ‘La Berceuse’ in Ultraviolet

John Wilson and Boston's Black Arts Community

Loïs Mailou Jones’s Mastery of the “Black Atlantic”

MFA Member Lectures: Robert Frank: Mary's Book

The Art of John Wilson: Impact

Ocean Stories: Where Art and Innovation Meet

Paris in Ruins with Sebastian Smee

MFA Member Lectures: Power of the People: Art and Democracy

Encounters with ‘Eternal Presence’

MFA Member Lectures: From Baghdad to Boston: The MFA's First Judaica Gallery

Varieties of Postmodernism

Henry Moore: Humanity of Urban Space in Postwar United States

Discovering Sculptor Henry Moore

MFA Member Lectures: Georgia O'Keeffe and Henry Moore

Georgie O'Keeffe: Bringing the Faraway Nearby

Two Artists in Visual Conversation: Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore

Alan Michelson on 'The Knowledge Keepers'

SMFA at Tufts Leo and Betty Beckwith Lecture: American Artist

MFA Member Lectures: Arts of Japan

Multiple Histories in Photography: In the Service of Art, Science, Fame and Fashion

Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore: Modernism at Mid-Century

Multiple Histories in Photography: People, Places, and Things

Getting Ready for "Georgia O'Keeffe and Henry Moore" with MFA Conservation

Essence of Nō Theater

Jewelry and Fashion at Play

A Queer Eye on Dressing Up

All That Glitters Isn't Gold: Dressing Up "Dress Up"

Korean Americans Connect to “Hallyu!”

New Discourses on Folk and Self-Taught Art

MFA Member Lectures: Tender Loving Care: Contemporary Art from the Collection

Spotlight on Asian American Art: Toshiko Takaezu

Hallyu and Korean Fashion

Korean Popular Arts and Culture: K-Pop and Beyond

The MFA’s Korean Art Collection and Hallyu!

Ashes to Powerhouse: South Korea from the 1950s to the 2020s

Craft Supernova: BU's Program in Artisanry, 1975-85

Community Arts Initiative: Our Family Portrait

MFA Member Lectures: Dress Up

Exploring Jewish History and Art: Old Faith in the New World

Exploring Jewish History and Art: Boston's First Judaica Gallery

Art As Evidence: Jewish Manuscripts and the Archeology of Jewish Life

Jewish Feminism: Transforming Ritual Practice 3/13/24