User:Gabyamparan/Atanasio Echeverría y Godoy

Article Draft

Lead

Atanasio Echeverría y Godoy (1771-1803) was a Mexican botanical artist who studied and trained at the Royal Art Academy in Mexico. Echeverría ventured on different expeditions through the mid-18th and early 19th centuries. He joined a Spanish expedition looking for new flora and fauna in New Spain and making sketches.

Excursions

1787-1788

On August 4, 1787, the Academy appointed Echeverría and classmate Juan de Dios Vicente de la Cerda to accompany Director Martín Sessé y Lacasta on an expedition. Echeverría was hired to sketch the nature and botanical life and elements on the excursion. This expedition required both students to go across the country to study and sketch the botanical nature of the world. Echeverría had only been 16 when he had been appointed. This expedition would last from August 1787 to the year 1788. The artists moved from base to base, exploring the Valley of Mexico and the surrounding mountains.

1789

In 1788 when the excursion ended, Echeverría and Cerda broke off from the group with zoologist José Longinos Martínez. The men remained in Mexicalzingo making dissections and sketches while the rest of the group went back to Mexico City. This began the second excursion that Echeverría would be a part of in Guerrero, lasting from March to December of 1789. During this trip, they collected about 372 new species and had created 180 paintings to go along with it.

1790-1792

In May of 1790, Echeverría went on his third expedition to California. Both Echeverría and Cerda joined José Mariano Mociño for a while until 1792 when Cerda and leader Sesse decided to return to Mexico. During this expedition, the botanists became more selective of their work due to not finding any new species. The two assembled a collection along with over 100 paintings.

1792-1795

After his three major excursions, Echeverría had continued to travel to Nuka Island in the summer of 1792. He made about 200 sketches of the species, plants and animals he had found with only 20 sketches that were botanical. In his trip to Cuba in 1795, Sesse realized Echeverría was sick and couldn't finish his drawings from the trip.

Data Process

Sketching

The process of collecting plant species starts by knowing when the plant is at its peak of blossoming. Since the artists are collecting these sketches for scientific study, their drawings have to be as accurate as possible. Freshly bloomed flowers meant that they were the perfect color and shape and the artists could get accurate date. Artists would sometimes pick the flowers and put them in a humid space to keep the flower alive long enough to finish any missing information.

Watercolor

The botanists began using watercolor to complete their sketches. This was the perfect medium to use because of its fast drying abilities, which allowed them to get the drawings done at a fast rate. Getting the color down correctly is also a big part in the drawings since it will be studied for scientific purposes.

Artworks

• 
  Ornithological Studies of Five Birds, Watercolor

• 
  Erythrina Divaricata, Watercolour

Collections

The Torner Collection of Sessé & Mociño Biological Illustrations

The Torner Collection of Sessé & Mociño Biological Illustrations is a collections of over 2,000 botanical and zoological illustrations made by Atanasio Echeverría y Gody, Juan de Dios Vicente de la Cerda, Jose Guio and Pedro Oliver.

Honors

In 1828 French botanist, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle was fascinated by Echevería's drawings and gave him the honor of having a large genus of flowering plants named after him that are native to the desert areas of central America, Mexico, and northwestern South America. There are approximately 150 species of the Echeverría.

Plant	Native Area	Sun Exposure
Perle Von Nurnberg	Central America	Full, Partial
Echeveria nodulosa	Central America	Full, Partial
Black Prince	Central America	Full, Partial
Topsy Turvy	Central America	Full, Partial
Dusty Rose	Central America	Full, Partial

Bibliography

• “Angiosperms (Flowering Plants).” Earth.com, 22 July 2021, www.earth.com/plant-encyclopedia/angiosperms/crassulaceae/echeveria-quitensis/en/.

• “Atanasio Echeverría y Godoy - Alchetron, the Free Social Encyclopedia.” Alchetron.com, 12 Sept. 2022, alchetron.com/Atanasio-Echeverr%C3%ADa-y-Godoy.

• “Botany and Horticulture Library.” Smithsonian Libraries, 1 Jan. 1970, library.si.edu/libraries/botany.

• Echeverría y Godoy, Atanasio (Fl. 1771-1803) on JSTOR. plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.person.bm000139414.
• “The Flora of El Camino.” Camino Arts, www.caminoarts.org/the-flora-of-el-camino.html.
• Henry, Laura. “Atanasio Echeverria y Godoy.” Wild Things, Wild Things, 10 July 2020, www.wildthingsgardendesign.com/blog/atanasio-echeverria-y-godoy.
• “Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.” Torner | Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, www.huntbotanical.org/art/show.php?10=.
• “Royal Botanical Expedition to New Spain.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Oct. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Botanical_Expedition_to_New_Spain.
• Strano, Luigi. “Echeveria.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 29 Jan. 2008, www.flickr.com/photos/luigistrano/2229213910.
• Warner-Admin. “Houseplant of the Week: Echeveria.” Warner Companies, Inc., 21 June 2021, warnercompanies.com/houseplant-of-the-week-echeveria/.
• Bruquetas, Rocío. “The Search for the Perfect Color: Pigments, Tints, and Binders in the Scientific Expeditions to the Americas.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 45, no. 3, 2015, pp. 367–87. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43829639. Accessed 3 May 2023.