The Cabaret of Plants by Richard Mabey: A Book Review

In renowned naturalist Richard Mabey’s dazzling work A Cabaret of Plants, Mabey challenges the view that plants are the utilitarian “furniture of the planet.” He argues instead that plants are the authors of their own lives, and that appreciating their agency enriches our bodies and minds. Suggesting that we are a “participating audience in an immense vegetable theater in the round,” Mabey explores the dynamism of plants, and demonstrates how we might learn from them. His chapters about relationships between artists and plants are especially delightful.

The Farm at Les Collettes, Cagnes, Pierre-August Renoir, oil on canvas, 1908-14. Collection of the Metropolitan Museum.

For example, Mabey’s description of Pierre August Renoir’s encounters with olive trees in Provence reveals a magical confluence between artistic inspiration and botanical adaptation. A leading impressionist, Renoir was devoted to capturing the transient effects of light on his subjects. And in the ancient olive grove at Les Collettes, Renoir's farm in Cagnes, he found a subject that yielded a kaleidoscopic color range as the light shifted: olive leaves. Casting shades of silver, green, blue and bronze, the leaves captivated Renoir with their prismatic nature: "How all those little leaves make me sweat!" he wrote. "A gust of wind and my tree's tonality changes." In fact, the leaves were responding to the dry Mediterranean climate, subtly modifying their shape when the wind blew to reduce moisture loss. While Renoir was taking delight in a "tree full of colours," the olive tree was conserving water. Light, wind, and olive tree prerogatives gave Renoir the shimmering palette for which his Cagnes landscapes are known.

A Cabaret of Plants is a captivating review of the world's stage on which plants, such as olive trees, play the leading role.