Plant Iconography and Interdisciplinary Approach: Evidence Based on Images of Flax Plants in Artworks

The existing problems related to population growth, climate change, reduction of genetic diversity of economically important agricultural plants force scientists to search for the ways to increase the maximum productivity of agricultural crops. The solution to this situation is the study of genetic resources of modern plants and their ancestral forms and retro varieties. New knowledge in the study of genetic collections of plants can be obtained on the grounds of the domestication process from wild plants to cultivated crops. One of the ways of studying the evolution of domesticated crops through works of art is an example of an interdisciplinary approach. Artistic works are valuable resources of information on crop plants to explore the different stage of domestication and cultivation of plants. There are several avenues of such research: visual analysis, archaeogenetics, artgenetics. In this article we make two contributions in the existed literature. Firstly, we attempt to review of the emergence of new terminology such as visual analysis, archaeogenetics, artgenetics and built the connection between them. Secondly, we focus on the flax plants depicted in Palekh art. We describe the cultivation of it, the technology of harvesting and processing of fibre in regions located in northern latitudes.