Bringing Texts to Life
Scholars have observed that the 17th-century Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael was so accurate that botanists can identify the flora in his paintings. Graduate student Mike Smith found similar precision and relevance in medieval literary botanical references. In his dissertation, funded by GW's Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute, he examines topics such as poisonous plants and grafting, shedding light on what he calls “human-plant encounters.”