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Esther Heins (1908- ), Paeonia suffruticosa, 1977, American. Watercolor on d’Arches. 30 x 22 cm. Courtesy of Judith Leet, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

Nowhere perhaps is the marriage of science and art more happily realized than in botanical painting. It is Nature that provides the specimen, but it is the artist who propagates its beauty and its truth; the world is thus gifted with a progeny that otherwise would have remained unrealized. Still, it is a union as fragile as time. The same flower cannot be looked at twice, for like music, which disappears even as it is heard, so too does the flower change when it is observed. And not only the flower: the observer as well. Time is literally carrying the two apart. Botanical artist Esther Heins (1908-  ) ( JAMA covers, December 25, 2002, and June 7, 2006) feels this keenly: "I want time to stand still," she . . . [Full Text of this Article]

M. Therese Southgate, MD