The Secret Nature of Art

When Plants Had Faces and Dragons Grew from Roots

The Erbario Manuscript is a 15th-century herbal¹ that unfolds like a fairytale. The illustrations evoke fact and fantasy, melding harmoniously into something surreal but grounded. Like the scent of damp earth in the spring, these botanical paintings have lingered, burrowing their way into the creative consciousness and taking root. They tell a story that has shifted over centuries but still holds the power to enchant. Once functional, art with purpose—the manuscript now exists as a remnant of a world we can no longer fully understand. And yet, the images persist, circulating the digital ether. I return to them often, drawn in by their colors, forms, and patterns, but mainly for the feeling they evoke: that the world is a strange and magical place to live.

The manuscript invites reflection on the nature of artistic intention and why particular works retain their grip across the centuries. In a time of fractured attention and digital overload, these watercolor images still command presence. What is it about them that compels us to pause, to look closer? And what do they say about art's capacity to move, linger, and speak across time? The answers hint at a profound secret about the nature of art, creativity, and the timeless human desire to connect with the world through image and expression.

The Erbario illustrations command attention with the force of a child trying to describe a delight they have witnessed in the world. The manuscript, compiled over several generations in the 15th century², contains 119 watercolor illustrations of plants, a quarter of which are accompanied by textual explanations. A herbal is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their medicinal, tonic, toxic, hallucinatory, or magical powers and their associated legends.

In How to See, David Salle asks, "What makes a picture? Is every painting pictorial, or is it a quality only some paintings possess?" He continues, "The answer rests on how forcefully a painting evokes the strangeness of the visual world." The Erbario feels like a portal into that exact strangeness—a document of nature's whimsy rendered with care. A testament to the surreal as a means of enchantment.

Although originally a medical reference, the manuscript today reads like fantasy. Anthropomorphic creatures emerge from leaves and roots; dragons sprout from soil; faces peer from leaves. There's playfulness in the imagery, but always with a sense of control, of sophistication. A tangible, dreamlike quality persists, myth grounded in nature.

The color palette is restrained and harmonious. A mossy green runs through the manuscript like a thread, constant and steady, with subtle tonal shifts. Earthy accent colors—flaxen mustard, burnt sienna, dusty pink, and blues spanning sky to sea—accompany the greens in a soft, melodic balance. The hues are carefully chosen and impactfully placed in contiguity. There's an intuitive sense of color theory at work here—each tone is a complement, each shade a deliberate gesture.

A favorite color palette of mine that is repeated throughout

Form, like color, feels intentional in the style. The lines are strong and descriptive, and the images are solidly built. The plants are painted with the assured brushstrokes of an artist intending precision. Created by a hand familiar with watercolor's delicacy. Anyone who's worked with the medium knows how difficult it is to avoid bleeding edges and how much patience it takes to attain precision. And yet, each image stands balanced, chunky, and solitary, lacking the wildness of nature itself. It is as if the artist intended to tame the wilderness, organize and make sense of it, rounding its rough edges. The images are orderly but not stale; the artist treats the subject with whimsy, bringing clarity to chaos, not to constrain nature, but to understand it.

Salle writes, "As with all effective art, the greatness is partly a matter of the imagination behind it and partly a matter of style." In the Erbario, both imagination and style converge.

Its roots trace back to the Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarium, a 4th-century herbal that served as its model. The preface to the herbal claims that the author's primary purpose in compiling this work was to provide a source of remedies accessible to a reader interested in medicine but not a practiced healer. With the manuscript in hand, the reader would not have to rely on the service of professional healers, whom the author maligns as greedy and incompetent³. The simple and precise drawings were intended to be accessible and trustworthy. Nature, here, is rendered as orderly, knowable, and benevolent.

And yet, just as the drawings create trust, they also stir wonder. Some plants are given human traits, and others take on the forms of animals or mythical creatures. The style of the illustrations, the anthropomorphized leaves and roots, demands attention. They hold power. In a time when illness was frightening and pervasive, this manuscript offered comfort. It declared that plants can heal. They are potent. Vital.

There is a human tendency towards the familiar that the illustrations honor. Perhaps the anthropomorphic leaves and roots made the manuscript feel safer and more intimate—vessels for stories people could relate to, a symbolic representation lost over the centuries. The images evoke a duality: one side is magical and commanding, the other approachable and comforting. Great art has the ability to bridge gaps, reconcile juxtapositions, hold the tension, and resolve it harmoniously.

We cannot experience the Erbario as its original readers did in the 15th century. It is no longer functional art; it is a historical remnant. But in its aged beauty lies a different kind of power. Its torn cover and oil-stained pages are vestiges of the handmade. Evidence of human touch and markers of time. In contrast to the clinical precision of our digital era, the Erbario reminds us of the patience and care of work made by hand and created over generations.

The fact that these images still circulate today tells us something about the kind of art that endures. The Erbario is strange, but not ugly. Ordered, but never dull. The subject matter, nature and myth, are just as captivating as ever. The images are rendered with a balance and harmony that is timeless in their appeal. As Salle puts it, there is a “deep pleasure that comes with seeing the familiar as something irrationally strange.” These images offer that pleasure in abundance. They catch us off guard. They linger. And they remind us—across the gap of centuries—that art, at its best, doesn’t just show us the world. It transforms it.

The Erbario illustrations were a major inspiration behind the LES icon, created by JaneMade, and our tagline, strange beauty. Their ability to merge the natural with the surreal—plants with personalities, leaves with faces, roots that curl into something mythic—captured the essence of what we aim to celebrate: art that surprises, blurs boundaries, and lingers. The icon draws from their bold, sculptural forms, while the tagline speaks to their quiet tension: the balance between the familiar and the fantastical. In the Erbario, we found a visual language that felt deeply aligned with our own—one that honors the imperfect, the peculiar, and the beautifully strange.

And speaking of mythological art, we have had an exciting launch this week at LES.

The Achilles Set began as a sketch and a story—an idea sparked and shaped through our ongoing collaboration with longtime LES artist Gianfranco Briceño. Our creative relationship with Briceño is symbiotic: a constant exchange of ideas, a rhythm of riffing and refining. Each collection builds on the last, deepening the dialogue. When we began to develop our own line of tableware and decor, bringing in our artists—the heart of LES—was essential. Gianfranco was a natural choice.

Briceño's work is rooted in storytelling, rich with history, yet undeniably modern. He creates one-of-a-kind ceramic vessels, lighting, and furniture for LES with his signature textures and grounded earth tones. Each piece begins with a sketch. These drawings are casual, their compositions lyrical and loose, intimate studies in line and form. I've always been drawn to these beginnings, lured by their sense of promise. There's raw emotion in how he balances shape and gesture, capturing deeply human feelings with restraint. Each figure seems to move, shift, and glide along the page. I imagine Gianfranco drawing each character in one go, without picking up his pen, the curves and lines pouring out from deep inside, a light and airy place.

From these sketches, the idea for our latest collaboration, The Achilles Set—a series of four dessert plates—began to take shape. Briceño's work always contains a narrative that reimagines ancient Greek art, breathing new life into age-old stories and motifs. His exploration of the male body adds another layer of intrigue, exploring the timeless themes of desire, vulnerability, and identity.

Around that same time, I read The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller—a reimagining of the Trojan War told through the eyes of Patroclus. It was my first real introduction to the myth of Achilles and Patroclus, and it stayed with me. In Homer's Iliad, Achilles is a callous and ruthless warrior, but with Patroclus, he is tender. While their friendship is powerful, the exact nature of their relationship is left up to interpretation. Later classical writers, including Aeschylus and Plato, embraced the idea of them as lovers.

Miller builds on that lineage. She reimagines their bond not just as a legendary friendship but as a profound romantic connection that grows from childhood companionship into a lifelong, soul-deep love. Through Patroclus' voice, Miller captures the vulnerability, devotion, and quiet strength of their relationship. Their love becomes a refuge from the world's brutality, making the story both heart-wrenching and beautiful.

Gianfranco and I began to imagine a collection of images inspired by their story— one that celebrates love, strength, and the beauty of vulnerability. Gianfranco envisions them as Miller did, young, carefree, and in love. These images later became the foundation for the Achilles Set.

The collection is produced in Portugal at a family-run workshop passed down through generations. A place where craft still matters and the human hand is felt in the details. There is tradition in every step of the process—the kind that can't be rushed. The drawings are carefully placed onto each plate, and the rims are hand-painted. Portugal is one of Gianfranco's favorite countries to visit, and something is fitting about these pieces taking shape there—a country layered with history, warmth, and artistry.

With the Achilles Set, the craftsmanship of our dinnerware blends with a story of tenderness and quiet strength. Each plate holds a sketch, a gesture, a moment pulled from myth and memory. It's an invitation to slow down and notice. More than just dishes for food, the plates become vessels for conversation, connection, and the continuation of stories that have endured for millennia.

Perfectly paired with the ribbon collection

Like the legends we inherit, our shared meals become their own mythology. A special dessert becomes a tradition, and a table setting marks celebrations year after year. The Achilles Set honors ancient tales and the intimate narratives we create when we gather, because every meal deserves a touch of artistry, a moment that reflects the enduring power of love, like the story of Achilles and Patroclus, still echoing through time.

Keep Reading…

1. The manuscript is part of the Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection at the University of Pennsylvania. It can be viewed in its entirety here

2. Multiple illustration styles are evidence of a series of augmentations likely made across generations. The Public Domain Review.

3. From The Origins of the Herbarium of Pseudo-Apuleius by Shirley Kinney