Beatrix Potter
Beatrix Potter was a British author who lived from 1866 – 1943. (31) Beatrix Potter is usually thought of as being quotidian and familiar. She made the ordinary world of familiar animals like rabbits and squirrels whimsical and fun. However, her eye was incisive and for her time she was on the cutting edge.
As a young girl, Beatrix Potter noticed that the London air was making her sick. (32) Well educated, she read Julius Oscar Brefeld’s multivolume work on mycology as a child. (33) Potter grew up in the inner London area South Kensington, which was nicknamed Albertopolis because its many institutions were founded by Prince Albert. She was exposed to ideas and had the opportunity to see collections at museums and art galleries. (34) Now the Victoria and Albert Museum in London manages the largest collection of artworks by Beatrix Potter. (35)
As a child, Scottish naturalist artist Jemima Blackburn influenced Potter who made copies of her studies. (36) Potter was also inspired by the art of the Pre-Raphaelites and landscapes of the British painters John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough. (37) Her parents began taking her family to the Lake District for vacations when she was a teenager and she made art that reflected the natural environment. “Mushrooms made their way into Potter’s landscape sketches and backgrounds for her tales.” (38)
She bought a microscope in 1892 and made microscopic drawings inspired by this new innovation. (39) Students could be shown examples of Potter’s microscopic drawings such as the one she did of the mushroom Aleurodiscus amorphous from December 30, 1896. (40) This topic also can be put in context of writing and illustration created with children in mind as the main audience for the works. She is most famous for her whimsical illustrated children’s story “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” published in 1901. It is estimated Potter had approximately 92 pets and they feature in her stories. (41) On one occasion Potter remarked at how the stamping of her pet rabbit Peter struck her as “one of the most energetic manifestations of insignificance which has come under my notice.” (42) This instance reminds me of how mushrooms although ubiquitous are often unseen and appear insignificant. Peter Rabbit was first written in epistolary form and then was published to a wide audience. (43) Students could be shown letters Potter wrote to friends and family which contain drawings and be exposed to how these ideas were revised into what would become her best-known works. (44) Potter also created other memorable fictional characters inspired by animals. Potter was fascinated by mushrooms and observed them so accurately that they can still be identified today by mycologists (botanists who specialize in fungi). (45) Figure 2 is a watercolor drawing that I made of a mushroom I saw this fall 2023 on a Connecticut trail that was collected by local mycologists who identified the scientific name for this mushroom as Geastrum Triplex.
Figure 2, Geastrum Triplex Mushroom, 2024, Watercolor Pencil, By Kasalina Maliamu Nabakooza.
If we compare Beatrix Potter to Mathinna, we see two girls, both in the British Empire, who had utterly different lives. Beatrix Potter had many opportunities. Mathinna had very few. It is possible, though, that Mathinna was taught within her community about nature and what mushrooms were edible. In comparing the stories of these two historical figures, gender, race, ethnicity, class and geography clearly impacted outcomes. Limitations placed arbitrarily on students based on their perceived difference can and should be pushed back on so they can learn in the most responsive and positive environment possible.
In 1845, Alexander von Humboldt observed that ‘Each step that we make in the more intimate knowledge of nature leads us to the entrance of new labyrinths.’ (46) Understanding illuminates the similarities and differences between our perspectives on the world as seen through visual art.
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