Flower Power

Water lilies, or nymphéa in French, first struck Monet’s fancy at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, where a prominent botanist and breeder introduced him to exotic new hybrids.  

He would go on to paint approximately 250 paintings of the beautiful aquatic plants.

Daisy, magnolia, lily, hydrangea, primrose—how many flowers in this joyous painting can you identify?  

Courbet used brilliant flowers from three different seasons, perhaps to symbolize the youthfulness of the young woman tending to them.

Even the print on her dress matches the arranged trellis!

Parvati, Hindu goddess of fertility, love, and devotion, is shown in a swaying, dance-like pose as she stands on a stylized lotus flower base.  

Known as the sacred lotus, the nelumbo nucifera is the national symbol of India and has spiritual significance to both Hindus and Buddhists.

It represents divine perfection. This figure of Parvati also may have originally held a lotus blossom in her raised right hand.

Cherry blossoms are very important in Japanese culture. So important, in fact, that the Japanese Meteorological Corporation releases a forecast for when they are expected to bloom.

Hanami (“flower viewing”) is a national celebration in March and April to welcome spring and appreciate the temporal beauty of nature.

Ipomoea, or morning glory, is a common flower seen in gardens and roadsides alike. The flowers bloom and die in a single day—making them a fitting allegory for death and fleeting youth.  

Viennese glass company J. & L. Lobmeyr made this chandelier of naturalistic glass morning glory blooms. They also made many similarly exuberant floral chandeliers based on other types of flowers.  

Tulips became an especially sought-after commodity in the Dutch Republic during the first decades of the 17th century. In the height of the craze, people would spend the equivalent of a house on a single bulb!  

The white variety with flame striping shown here was the most coveted of all. The tulip mania ended abruptly when the market crashed in 1637, just two years after this painting was completed.

This Louis Comfort Tiffany vase form has often been called “jack-in-the-pulpit,” but it actually bears little resemblance to that plant.   

The lustrous iridescent glass was influenced by the colorful chemical corrosion on the surface of ancient glass that had been buried for centuries.