Florilegium
Jane Kennelly
Florilegium is a collection of ink drawings with accompanying fragments of text taken from Francis Ponge’s
‘Faune et Flore’, a prose poem, phenomenological in inspiration, published by Gallimard in Tome Premier
in 1946. Ian Higgins, a noted Ponge scholar and translator, formerly of the University of St Andrews, has
worked on a new translation of specific extracts.

Themes running through the work are those of Ponge’s writing; an intense scrutiny of the subject with
playful reference to the archaic and the symbolic. The herbarium of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh,
where the original ink drawings were done, is of great significance. The Herbarium is a repository of some
two million dried and preserved specimens. Many of the Orchideae folders are two hundred years old.
They are a reminder of the fugitive, transient nature of plant life, yet paradoxically they survive. They bear
witness to the wideness of the world and the wonder of its exploration. Plants from remote areas of the globe
where the plant gatherers traveled have been painstakingly laid down, often in beautiful page designs. The
drawings are non-specific like Ponge’s prose poem. They have taken the anonymity of the past and they
evoke in the imagination all the journeys ever taken to Asia and the New World.

Florilegium gives new spiritual life to plant forms in addition to their botanical and archaeological significance.
They run parallel to the poetic insights of Ponge who had ‘the knack of bringing dead words to life, making
them resonate, sparkle, turn somersaults upon the printed page’ (Margaret Guiton}.

Edition of 20, text- Paris, France; Illustrations- York, UK, Folder- Bath, UK
40 x 28 x 1.5 cms, text printed on Velin BFK Rives at the Atelier de la Cérisae,
illustrations- photo-etching on Velin BFK Rives
jane.kennelly@tesco.net
www.artconnections.org.uk

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