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Portraits of Plants
Publisher
:
Editions Presses de la Renaissance
Parution date
:
2003
EAN
:
9782856168950
Description
Portraits de Plantes is a rare book that combines close to one hundred stunning photographs of plants, flowers, fruits and vegetables with lyric, informative texts. Internationally renowned nature photographer Gilles Mermet isolates his exotic floral subjects in extreme close-ups set against black backgrounds, highlighting to full effect their exquisitely harmonized forms, colors, and patterns. To his expert photographic eye, these plants are nothing less than perfection itself, a hymn to the infinite beauty of the universe. Mermet’s engrossing portraits are accompanied by Yves Paccalet’s meditations on the features, facts, history, myths, odors, colors, and poetry of these marvelous creations. Explanatory and breezily anecdotal, Paccalet’s descriptions shed light on some of the world’s most wonderful plants: cryptomeria japonica, “the tree that tells haikus,” Amyema scandans, “the clan of thieves,” Ficus religiosa, a sacred leaf likened to the waking of Buddha, Ganoderma lucidum, “the mushroom of immortality,” and Alpina purpurata, “the forest flame.” Taken together, the written and photographic portraits plunge the reader into an often unnoticed world of natural beauty.
Author
Yves Paccalet : Yves Paccalet is a philosopher, journalist, naturalist, and the author of over sixty books, twenty of which were co-written with Jacques Cousteau. He has also written for Terre Sauvage, Le Nouvel Observateur, and Figaro Magazine.
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