> I think there is something important that we lose when we increase the accuracy of a representation at the expense of the elegance of the representation.
But that's not what's happening.
Botanical art is still highly valued in the botany field because field conditions often do not allow a completely accurate replication of a specimen via a camera lens. In many cases, the only way to properly represent the plant in question, to a colour-accurate, detail-accurate degree, is by a drawing. Source: My mother is a highly qualified botanical artist and a member of the SBA.
Yes, still valued, but isn't the shift what the linked article is about? "Botanical illustrators like Tangerini are rare and becoming as endangered as some of the plants they draw."
It's not about being valued, they're literally indispensible for the documentation of plants, there are no alternatives that match the quality of the documentation that they produce.
As for them being rare, part of that is due to education and the infrastructure around it. When my mother was growing up botanical illustration or scientific illustration was not listed as even a potential career choice, and she wasn't allowed to take art and science at the same time as "that wouldn't be realistic". Obviously things have changed since then but given that so few artists even recognise it as a career choice has an impact on the number of people who decide to go down that path.
It's like how the UK is running out of high quality vellum, used for legal paper and archiving, because nobody realises it's a viable career choice for them to do. There's literally a free, funded apprenticeship to do it, because they need people to do this job.
But that's not what's happening.
Botanical art is still highly valued in the botany field because field conditions often do not allow a completely accurate replication of a specimen via a camera lens. In many cases, the only way to properly represent the plant in question, to a colour-accurate, detail-accurate degree, is by a drawing. Source: My mother is a highly qualified botanical artist and a member of the SBA.