Marianne North: Painting a Darwinian Vision

The collected paintings of the Victorian botanical artist and explorer, Marianne North, are displayed in serried ranks in the gallery bearing her name in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. So far the emphasis has been on post-colonialist readings of these paintings. In this article, however, and in the wake of last year's Darwin anniversary celebrations, I wish to explore the relationship of the images to the challenging and innovative ideas about the natural world advanced by North's contemporary, Charles Darwin. North was a huge admirer of Darwin and it is evident that she read not only his On the Origin of the Species but also his many botanical works. I shall examine both how North's paintings incorporate Darwin's specific findings and theories about the plant kingdom and how they present an imaginative visual analogue to several of the most characteristic stylistic and thematic features of Darwin's writings.