Product Description

This volume covers plant growth and development around the year, and includes exercises for seeing and understanding plant transformation. A wide variety of ordinary plants are drawn at every stage of their development. Instructions help the reader try out the observation and drawing exercises.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #443357 in Books
• Published on: 1996-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• New
• Mint Condition
• Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon
• Guaranteed packaging
• No quibbles returns

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
A practical Introduction to Goethean Science
By Isis Brook
New Eyes For Plants is a workbook for observing and drawing plants. It is Goethean in perspective in that it emphasises approaching the natural world with wonder, being diligent in observation and honouring the experiences of one's senses. The book takes the reader through the year and focuses on particular plants or phenomena that are emblematic in the way they reveal the workings of nature.

There are many beautiful illustrations which both inspire and possibly daunt the reader. Perhaps including a page of less accomplished work would help to demonstrate to the insecure reader that it is embarking on the process that is important.

The strengths of the book come from the skills of its contributors and the way it has developed out of a teaching situation: the Life Science Seminars. This mixture of expert knowledge and teaching experience means that the book, if used in the way intended, will provide an excellent practical introduction to Goethe's approach to science, to botany, to drawing and to approaching life with wonder.

The one failing of the book is as a replacement for participation in the courses which were its origin. But how could a book replace the communal experience of a guided entering into nature's mysteries? Although an interesting read and beautifully illustrated, to use the book to its fullest potential one must apply one's will and work through the book slowly and carefully completing each exercise, rather than skipping to one that looks more immediately enticing. This is a difficult task for people today who quite rightly question dogmatic adherence to instructions and can confuse impatience with a process with making independent choices. However, to extract the richness of this book, do try to work through the whole, engage with the exercises fully and try to find others to accompany you on the journey.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
An exceptional, extraordinary, life changing book
By Angus Jenkinson
Many books are claimed to be life changing and extraordinary. This one is. If you are an average citizen of the world you will wonder whether it is bonkers or brilliant, because it couldn't be anything else. It will challenge your ideas of science, of nature and of yourself, but if you engage with what you read you will literally go on a sensory and mental journey that reveals an entirely new world of nature and gives you a new inspiring perspective on life.

It is based on entirely practical and real exercises that help you experience the developmental processes of the living world. Normally we see plants more or less frozen in a moment of time. They look like what they are right now. But a week ago they look like what they were then into three months they will look like something else. Doing these exercises, originally developed by Goethe, the author of Faust and a scientist whose work is being returned to with increasing interest, cultivate an exact way of bringing this flow of development from seed to flower into a whole that you can visualise and perceive.

This dramatically shifts our orientation towards and experience of nature. At an individual level, this is life changing but it is also of enormous importance to the planet in our environmentally challenged times. Every gardener or supporter of Greenpeace, WWF, and the other environmental charities should make this a must read!

However, its relevance is much broader than just to the gardener or green advocate: the principles that you will experience applied also wherever there is a developmental process, notably the development of teams, organisations and businesses. Many people have found that this makes you a better manager.