There are artists who paint what they see, and then there are artists who paint what they know. Alexander Viazmensky - St. Petersburg botanist, mycologist, and watercolourist - belongs firmly in the second category. Over the course of decades, he has made it his life's work to paint mushrooms life-size, foraging for specimens himself in the forests near St. Petersburg, studying their ecology, and rendering them with a precision that has earned his work a place in the collections of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens, the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
He calls mushrooms "flowers of the woods," and looking at his paintings, it is easy to see why. This 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle reproduces thirteen of his finest fungi portraits: species edible and toxic, common and rare, gathered together in a composition that rewards close attention. The colours are extraordinary — rich ochres, deep umbers, the violent scarlet of an Amanita muscaria - and the ecological detail is meticulous. The leaves and forest debris that surround each specimen are not decorative: they tell you exactly which trees each fungus favours.
Pomegranate works directly with artists and institutions to authenticate colour reproduction, which matters enormously here. Viazmensky's watercolours depend on subtle tonal gradations to convey texture - the velvety surface of a cep cap, the fragile gills of a destroying angel - and these are preserved faithfully on the puzzle's 250 gsm matte art paper. There is no glare, no colour drift, and none of the washed-out flatness that cheaper puzzle printing tends to produce.
The pieces themselves are cut from thick recycled board using a ribbon-cut method that produces a satisfyingly snug fit with minimal dust and no ambiguous shapes. Every piece interlocks cleanly. A 23 x 30cm pictorial insert is included, identifying each of the thirteen species depicted - useful both during assembly and as a reference once you know what you are looking at.
Assembled, the puzzle measures 50 x 63.5cm. The box is 25.5 x 33 x 4.8cm.
A thoughtful gift for naturalists, foragers, botanical art collectors, or anyone who appreciates the kind of puzzle that repays slow, careful attention.
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