Flowers and Transition

Flowers have been a popular theme painted throughout art history, mainly in still life, and each artist has
different perspectives, techniques and energy. I will explore the similarities and differences on how artists
from different centuries have portrayed flowers in the transition of life to death to achieve an understanding
on how floral art has evolved. Analysing artists’ works and their techniques could possibly influence and
improve my ideas and artwork. The three artists I have currently been working from are Ashley Oshiro, Katie
DeGroot, and Gaynor Dickeson. Ashley Oshiro uses a rough brush stroke technique using acrylic paint to
portray alive flowers, Katie DeGroot uses etching to portray dead flowers with a dark atmosphere, and Gaynor
Dickeson uses biro pen to create sensitive and detailed illustrations of dehydrated and alive flowers. After
carefully and thoroughly researching similar artists with the floral theme, I have selected three artists to write
about: Jacob Vosmaer (17th century), Vincent Van Gogh (19th century) and Albert Williams (20th Century). All
artists used oil paints to produce their pieces, but each used the media diversely, Van Gogh in particular as he
used a technique called impasto. These artists have produced artwork of both dead and alive flowers which
will allow me to compare how they depict each.

Flowers have been converted into art for centuries and it mostly began with using flowers to accompany the
main focus of a piece of artwork, or decorating books and manuscripts. In the Medieval age, it was common to
see swirling and extending vines flowing from flowers and wrapping around the text of books. These types of
illustration sometimes symbolised a meaning, especially when they were featured in the Bible as vines
symbolised everlasting life. Renaissance paintings and tapestries involved a large amount of intricate flowers
painted to surround a realistic person or object for a
“mille-fleur” background. The most notable artist during
this art period in terms of flowers was Sandro Botticelli as
flowers play a prominent part in many of his famous
artworks. In his painting, “La Primavera”, there is a
contrast between the patterns on the dress of one figure
and the real life flowers on the ground. The two figures to
the right are Chloris transitioning to the goddess of
flowers called Flora. Chloris who is wearing a plain and
has flowers spilling out her mouth which change into the
pattern on the dress of her future self, Flora, who she is
clutching onto. This depicts the changing of nature to art
in a painting. Botticelli may have also been trying to portray how flowers in the real world can wilt and die but
after they’ve been changed into art, the art lives forever and the flowers are
immortal.

Renaissance paintings featured a beautiful landscape behind figures that would often
include flowers. Over time, the landscape gradually became more important until
landscape paintings were common. Landscapes concentrate more on the wider
atmosphere than accurateness so for detailed and refined portraits of individual
flowers, Albrecht Dürer, who was a painter, writer and printermaker in Germany,
provided us oil paintings that were almost photographic. They captured the delicacy
and slenderness which gives the paintings a special atmosphere. An interesting
aspect of most of his drawings was that the roots were revealed, possibly due to
them being considered the most important part as they were used for medical
purposes.

A similar style of painting but still very different arose which was Dutch Still Life.
These paintings often concentrated a lot on vases of flowers and fruit. The fruit was sometimes rotting, or over
ripe, and being eaten by insects, and the flowers would be wilted. Dutch still life may also feature a
combination of dead and alive plants. This is an excellent example of transitory life of flowers. There are
various noteworthy Dutch painter, including someone called Rachel Ruysch. Her flower paintings were
generally flowers piled into vases but the flowers crumpled and hung down low so that most of the vase could
not be seen. The stems are in a misshapen formation with each stem bending in different directions as the
others. This creates a lively affect to the paintings with the carelessness arrangement.
The colours that she used were sharp and bright which contrasted with the dimly lit
backgrounds of her paintings. Another Dutch painter in this time
period was Jan van Huysum. He gave his paintings a very lavish feeling
to his paintings, although so did Ruysch but he perhaps did it more. His
paintings consisted of flowers piled up in stacks or arranged upon the
table as well as in a vase. Fruit would also accompany the flowers, and
the way he painted the fruit made you almost feel the velvet skin of
the peaches, and he would capture the transparent gleam of the
red-currants.

The next notable shift in the style of painting flowers was when the
impressionist painters came along in the 1800s and were interested in
painting things in the way they appear over how they actually are.
Paintings would be depicted in dull shades if the day was darker and bright shades if the day
was light. Shading would be green, red and other bold colours as well as the usual brown and
black which captured the surfaces of things so well. Monet was famous for his paintings of
water lilies that were brightly coloured but still gave a soft mellow atmosphere.