J.J. Grandville: Flowers Personified (Les fleurs animées)

Grandville, Les Fleurs Animées, 1847, Rose

Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard, known under the pseudonym of Grandville, was an extremely imaginative and somewhat underrated French Romantic artist, illustrator and caricaturist who was active in the first half of the nineteenth century. Grandville made a series of fifty engravings and two wood engravings called “Les fleurs animées”, translated as “Animated Flowers” or “Flowers Personified”, which served to accompany the texts written by Taxile Delord, 2 wood engravings, 50 engravings, Gabriel de Gonet, Paris 1846. The series of whimsical, playful and dreamy illustrations was completed in 1846 and published posthumously in 1847; Grandville died in March 1847 at the age of forty-three. What a beautiful last gift to the world from such a genius mind.

Each of the fifty illustrations is devoted to a single flower and the flower is presented in the shape of a woman; a splendidly dressed woman. Those who are well versed in the history of the nineteenth century female fashions will recognise that the silhouettes of the dresses that the flower-ladies are wearing, as well as their hairstyles are based in the real fashions of Grandville’s times, that is, in the 1840s fashion. The flowers are seen wearing the typical 1840s narrow bodice with a bell-shaped skirt and the flower which they are representing is usually decorating their dress and their hair. Often time these flowery beauties are accompanied by none other than their majesty the bugs and Grandville’s portrayal of beetles might just be the cutest one I’ve seen of these, usually, not so cute creatures. At the moment, I feel that the “Rose” is my favourite out of his flower illustrations. She is seated on the throne, like the Queen that she is, wearing a rosebud crown on her head and the rosebuds also decorate her bosom while the rose leaves serve as a trimming on her long flowing skirt. She looks dreamy and humble and sweet as she sits there with her sceptre while the green beetles are gazing at her. In the illustration for “Poppy”, the poppy flower is seen showering the beetles with a rain of poppy seeds and I wonder was Grandville actually trying to make a point there. The “Camellia” has a huge camellia blossom on her chest, like a large red pulsating heart. “Dahlia” and the “Briar Rose”, on the other hand, are sporting a vast dahlia and briar rose flowers as their hair decor. The “Lily” is presented as a shy, wistful bride with a long veil, her dress being held by a beetle. The little Violets are shy girls, hiding under their leaves with their purple heads. “Lilac” has a very interesting lilac bonnet as she is seen conversing with the beetle, probably discussing the deep philosophical questions such as; what is the meaning of life etc. “Tulip” looks a tad oriental with her turban-clad head. As hard as it was to chose my favourites from all of Grandville’s flower illustrations, I have chosen them for this post. Enjoy!

Camellia

Dahlia

Poppy

Briar Rose

Lily

Violet

Orange Blossom

Lilac

Marguerite

Tulip

Carl Krenek – Sleeping Beauty: I’d Sleep Another Hundred Years, O love, for Such Another kiss!

“I’d sleep another hundred years,
O love, for such another kiss;”
“O wake forever, love,” she hears,
“O love, ’t was such as this and this.”

…..

“O eyes long laid in happy sleep!”
“O happy sleep that lightly fled!”
“O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!”
“O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!”

(Lord Tennyson, The Day-Dream)

Carl Krenek (1880-1948), A Fairy Tale Scene – Sleeping Beauty, n.d.

“In the topmost bedchamber of the house he found her. He had stepped over sleeping chambermaids and valets, and, breathing the dust and damp of the place, he finally stood in the door of her sanctuary. Her flaxen hair lay long and straight over the deep green velvet of her bed, and her dress in loose folds revealed the rounded breasts and limbs of a young woman. He opened the shuttered windows. The sunlight flooded down on her. And approaching her, he gave a soft gasp as he touched her cheek, and her teeth through her parted lips, and then her tender rounded eyelids. Her face was perfect to him…”
(Anne Rice, Sleeping Beauty)

French Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé said that “To define is to kill. To suggest is to create”, and even before him, the seventeenth century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho wrote that “a poem that suggests 70-80 percent of its subject may be good, but a poem that only suggests 50-60 percent of the subject will always retain its intrigue”. This way of looking at things stuck with me and, suddenly, while looking at this painting by Carl Krenek and wondering why is it that I love it so much, it dawned on me… The reason for my immense appreciation of Carl Krenek’s painting “A Fairy Tale Scene – Sleeping Beauty” is because of its deliberate vagueness.

I have seen many nineteenth and early twentieth century illustrations of this famous fairy tale, but this one strikes me as the most original and perhaps also the most vibrant and flowery one as well. Instead of boring us with architectural details of the chamber where the Sleeping Beauty is sleeping in her bed, and painting all her entourage and all the sleeping courtiers and what not, Krenek focuses on the bare essentials; the slumbering princess and the roses that have grown over her bed, which are the two main motives of the fairy tale and the most recognisable to our eyes. This instantly brings freshness and our eye is excited. This is not to say that Krenek wasn’t detailed in his approach, far from it. The scene is very detailed, but in areas where it matters. Just look at the meticulous way he had painted all the flowers and thorns and branches, how they fill the space beautifully and naturally.

Krenek certainly wasn’t vague when it came to depicting the roses; here is one roses, now you, my dear viewers, imagine the others. No, it seems he really put his heart into all these flowers and they look ever so cheerful and vibrant, from the delicate pink ones above the princess and the more richly coloured red, orange and yellow ones that are growing around her bed. There is little to be seen of the actual Sleeping Beauty; only her pale face with the peacefully closed eyes and her white dress. It seems the roses are more of a main character than she is. Otherwise, I may have preferred to see the princess painted in more details, her beauty more enchanced, but in this painting I find the whole vagueness just delightful and I don’t regret there not being more of a focus on the princess. In fact, our eye may be even more drawn to the princess precisely because we cannot see her clearly. They mystery is alluring.

Sleeping Beauty is perhaps my favourite fairy tale and there are so many ways to look at this story on a symbolic level. Is she really just a princess who fell asleep because of the evil witch, waiting for a kiss to awake her? The theme of awakening can be interpreted in many ways; these days the nature, kissed by spring, is waking up from a long slumber of winter, but also, it can symbolise the girl’s awakening and ripening into womanhood, after that fateful kiss, just as the main character Faustine in the French 1972 film “Faustine and the Beautiful Summer” says, after being kissed by a man for the first time, “With this kiss my life begins!”. Is it the kiss of the Prince which awakens the Sleeping Beauty’s dormant soul, or is a love arrow shot by Cupid from above?

And now, to end the post, here are some beautiful verses from Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Day-Dream”:

“And on her lover’s arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold;
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old.
Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day,
The happy princess followed him.
“I’d sleep another hundred years,
O love, for such another kiss!”

Sleeping Beauty by the Brothers Grimm, illustrated by Heinrich Lefler. Part of a fairy tale calender published by Berger & Wirth, Leipzig, 1905

Nick Cave – Are You the One That I’ve Been Waiting For? – Carl Krenek – The Lovers

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’s single “(Are You) The One I’ve Been Waiting For?” was released on the 19th May 1997. It was the first out of two singles from their album “The Boatman’s Call” which Nick Cave personally had expressed a dislike for, claiming the album was too personal and that music shouldn’t be that personal. The other single from the album is the song “Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere” which is sad but very beautiful as well. For some reason this painting of lovers in the month of May by the Austrian painter Carl Krenek seemed very fitting to accompany the song’s lyrics. I do love the tenderness between the lovers and the way the entire natural space is filled with flowers and leaves.

Carl Krenek, May – The Lovers (Mai – Die Liebenden), 1905, tempera

Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?

I’ve felt you coming, girl, as you drew near
I knew you’d find me, cause I longed you here
Are you my destiny?
Is this how you’ll appear?
Wrapped in a coat with tears in your eyes?
Well take that coat, babe, and throw it on the floor
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

As you’ve been moving surely toward me
My soul has comforted and assured me
That in time my heart it will reward me
And that all will be revealed
So I’ve sat and I’ve watched an ice-age thaw
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built
Out of longing great wonders have been willed
They’re only little tears, darling, let them spill
And lay your head upon my shoulder
Outside my window the world has gone to war
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

O we will know, won’t we?
The stars will explode in the sky
O but they don’t, do they?
Stars have their moment and then they die

There’s a man who spoke wonders
Though I’ve never met him
He said, ‘He who seeks finds
And who knocks will be let in’
I think of you in motion
And just how close you are getting
And how every little thing anticipates you
All down my veins my heart-strings call
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

Claude Monet – Irises – Japonisme

“When I am happy I paint the iris, when I am angry the bamboo.”

(Monk Jue Yin)

Claude Monet, Irises, 1914-17

Despite the popularity that Monet’s paintings of water lilies seem to enjoy, the irises were also one of his favourites flowers and they lined the pathways in his garden. During the time of the first world war Monet kept returning to the motif of irises and painted around thirty paintings, or portraits I should say, of them. Each of these paintings is very simple in terms of compositional but instead captures the vibrancy of the irises in various different moods and shades of purple and blue. This portrait of the irises above is perhaps my favourite, or at least it is my favourite at the moment, because of its intense blueness. I just cannot separate my eyes from it! The vibrancy and the depth of that blue! Oh to be a little butterfly and fly into that nocturnal blueness and linger there on and on, listening to its sweet music and inhaling the fragrance of the spring night. There are only five irises in the painting, painted in warm purple and yellow, and yet the entire painting is screaming with the colour of the iris. It is as if the blueness of the petals had spillt itself, like a bottle of ink, all over the garden. There is no boundary anymore between the flowers and the garden, the colours of the petals are spilling everywhere and posessing everything. This deep shade of blue gives the painting a mystical, almost dream-like mood, and the irises, tall and independant, each blossom growing on its own sturdy stem, are laughing and shining in that blueness like the stars. Each long thin leaf is painted in a single brushstroke which, although intensely green in colour, is fading against the dark background.

The interest in the iris was newly awoken in the late nineteenth century, especially in the context of the Art Nouveau, through the influence of the Japanese art. Aemil Fendler wrote in 1897: “We have found the way to nature again, and it lies through Japan. No longer does the living art of our time take its nurture from past styles, no longer does it seek its models in the pattern books of the Renaissance or the Rococo… The wonderful art of Japan offers a rare combination of untarnished natural freshness with the most refined decorative taste and the highest stylistic assurance: let us be grateful to it for showing us the right path to follow and for opening the eyes of those that have eyes to see.” The manner in which the Japanese artists portrayed the irises brought a freshness and enthusiasm into western art; a new way of seeing the flower, for those who have eyes to see. The iris itself is just perfectly shaped for the aesthetical exploitation, it is a flower made to be immortalised in art, it is mysterious and slightly erotic, and perfect for all sorts of arabesque-like Art Nouveau stylisations. The iris seems to embody both the masculine and the feminine traits both at once; its flower petals being shaped in such an ambiguous manner, and the stems and the leaves being vertical, tall and strong. Indeed, the iris has gone a long way, from being seen as merely ornamental and painted as such to being the shining star of the canvases such as these by Monet.

Botticelli – Primavera: The Rose Is Full Blown, The Riches of Flora Are Lavishly Strown

“O come! (…) The rose is full blown,
The riches of Flora are lavishly strown…”

Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, tempera on panel, c.1482

These days I was really enjoying Botticelli’s painting “Primavera”; and I took great delight in gazing at all the details and especially gazing at the figures of Flora and the nymph Chloris caught in the wicked embrace of the God Zephyr. This painting needs no introduction because it is so famous in the Western world, but I still felt the need to share its beauty here and to show my appreciation, or rather, adoration. Sandro Botticelli was one of the Medici family’s favourite painters at the time and this painting was probably painted for the occassion of the marriage of Lorenzo Medici’s cousin which took place in 1482 and that is the date usually asigned to the painting. The painting’s themes of love and new beginnings, tied with the arrival of spring, as personified by the Roman Goddess Flora, are fitting for such a happy occassion indeed.

The court poet of the Medici family, Angelo Poliziano, described the garden of Venus as a place of eternal spring and peace, and his descriptions may have served as an inspiration to Botticellli for this painting. As the title “Primavera” suggests, the painting shows the arrival of spring and the celebrations surrounding the event. The arrival of spring is the most joyous time of the year for me! Who would not wish to celebrate it!? For long winter months I yearn to see the flowers blooming, the weeping willows coming alive with many little leaves, the birds singing… It is natural then, that the arrival of spring and the entire season of spring is also tied with the season of love. The central figure in Botticelli’s painting is Venus, the Goddess of Love, in the company of of her son Amor who is flying above her with his love arrows, and the Three Graces, dressed in flimsy white dresses that reveal more than they conceal. Venus is in the centre of the composition but, compared to the other figures, she is standing more in the background, as if she is allowing the spring to come before her. In the far right corner is the God Mercury who is holding off a rainy cloud with his stick; nothing is allowed to disturb the idyll of the beautiful garden where orange trees are ripe with fruit and a sweet fragranace of flowers colours the air. The Roman poet Lucretius’ poetic work “De Rerum Natura” may have also served as an inspiration to Botticelli and indeed in some of the verses we find similarities:

“Spring-time and Venus come, and Venus’ boy,
The winged harbinger, steps on before…
Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all
With colours and with odours excellent…”

It is as if Botticelli is describing these verses because most of the characters from the painting are here in the poem; the Venus and her ‘boy’, Zephyr and Flora. My favourite part of the painting is the right corner where we have an interesting motif of metamorphosis presented all in one painting, although it doesn’t happen at the same time. Zephyr, the God of Wind, is seen forcefully embracing the beautiful yet frightened nymph Chloris who then transforms into the Goddess Flora who is represented by the woman dressed in a long white gown decorated with little flowers, for she is the Goddess of spring. A woman touched by love becomes all flowery and spring-like; what a beautiful analogy! Here are more verses from Lucretius’s “De Rerum Natura”:

“For thee waters of the unvexed deep
Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky
Glow with diffused radiance for thee!
For soon as comes the springtime face of day,
And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred,
First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,
Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine,
And leap the wild herds round the happy fields
Or swim the bounding torrents. Thus amain,
Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee
Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead,
And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams,
Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains,
Kindling the lure of love in every breast,
Thou bringest the eternal generations forth…”

This “transformation by love” that has happened between Zephyir and Flora is the most beautiful element of the painting for me. Also, I am really enjoying Flora’s fashion choice; the long white gown and flowers. Flora as imagined by Botticelli made me think of a few fashion pictures from the sixties and seventies, and also of the costume worn by the sweet Jane Birkin.

Jane Birkin in “Wonderwall” (dir. Joe Massot – 1968)

Detail

ELLE Magazine – July 7th 1975 Yves Saint Laurent and Liberty of London Photographed by Barry Lategan

Toni Frissell – Vogue (June 1967)

My Inspiration for April 2023

This has been the most romantic April I have ever had! I would have drowned in its dreaminess were it possible. Days flew like a river, one melting into the other, each one more dreamy, more beautiful, bringing me new gifts in various forms; a flower, a loving word, a golden sunset… I have had a major Nick Cave obsession and have been listening to his albums “Let Love In” and “The Boatman’s Call” non-stop, and have been reading his Red Hand Files and also “Faith, Hope, Carnage”, and here is something beautiful from it: “The luminous and shocking beauty of the everyday is something I try to remain alert to, if only as an antidote to the chronic cynicism and disenchantment that seems to surround everything, these days.” Lilac, magnolia, iris, hydrangea; the favourites of this month. I’ve enjoyed the paintings of Ophelia, nymphs; Waterhouse’s and other, Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations, Delmira Agustini and Tagore’s poetry, Tinderstick’s album “Curtains”, Anglada-Camarasa’s paintings, Anais Nin’s journals, paintings of gardens, long gowns and flowers crowns as you’ve seen in my fashion inspiration post, water lilies and weeping willows, William Morris’s prints and his Briar Rose series…

“Ah! When you are far away my whole life cries
And to the murmur of your steps even in dreams I smile.
I know you will return, that another dawn will shine…”

(Delmira Agustini, From Far Away)

“Art is much, but love is more.
O Art, my Art, thou’rt much, but Love is more!
Art symbolises heaven, but Love is God
And makes heaven.”
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, Book IX.)

“I think of you in motion
And just how close you are getting
And how every little thing anticipates you
All down my veins my heart-strings call
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?”
(Nick Cave, Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for)

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

By Marianna Rothen

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Hydrangea (@lovecats92 on Instagram)

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

 

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Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale: With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied (A Nymph)

“There, in a meadow, by the river’s side,
A flock of nymphs I chanced to espy,
All lovely daughters of the flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied…”

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, ‘With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied’, 1915, pencil and watercolour

April is a green month. Whereas in March the blossoming trees coloured the horizon, in April nature is all clad in green, at last. On cloudy days especially the verdant landscape is ever so vibrant. I think my enthusiasm for spring is quite obvious from my recent posts, and indeed I take delight every day in the awakening of nature and the lushness and sensuality that accompany it. I seek the same sensations in the world of art and this watercolour by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale known under the titled “With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied” perfectly encapsulated the April vibes that I am feeling at the moment. This is April in a painting, for me. A beautiful month, a beautiful painting. I am thoroughly enjoying all the Pre-Raphaelitesque details in each and every leaf, the nymph’s green-blueish hair, the reflections in the water… it is beyond praise. Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale was not a Pre-Raphaelite artist in the strict sense of the word, but her style of painting, vibrant and detailed, and her choice of motifs is very much Pre-Raphaelite. The natural setting in this watercolour, painted with such admirable attention to all the details, to every flower, every leaf, every branch, every blade of grass, is very reminiscent of John Everett Millais’ painting “Ophelia”. We might assume the same natural setting was used for the portraits of Ophelia and this lovely nymph.

The watercolour shows a naked nymph by the river, holding flowers in both of her hands. She seems surprised, caught off guard and gazing at something, or someone, that we cannot see. Despite being portrayed as naked, which is usual for a nymph, she doesn’t seem to be flaunting her nakedness in a sensual or inviting manner, as perhaps Waterhouse’s nymphs are doing, but rather she seems innocent to the point of unawareness, untroubled by society’s norms and demands, she is a free nature’s child and her heart is pure. Her long dark hair, tinged with shades of blue and green, and adorned with flowers, is elegantly covering her body and the blades of grass bellow are doing the same thing.

This watercolour is found in the “The Book of Old English Songs and Ballads” (printed in Edinburgh in 1915) and is an illustration for Edmund Spenser’s poem “Prothalamion” written in 1596 on the ocassion of a double wedding of Ladie Elizabeth and Ladie Katherine Somerset. The poem meditates on marriage, beauty of the brides and their wedding day, and dwells on the beauty of the natural world as opposed to the restrictive world of court and politics. In the poem, on a calm day when the sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play, the poet goes for a walk by the river Thames and sees nymphs, “the lovely daughters of the flood”, as he calls them, who are gathering flowers, lilies, daisies and primroses, and putting them in their little baskets.

Details

Here are the opening lines of the poem from where the title of the watercolour was taken:

“CALM was the day, and through the trembling air
Sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play,
A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay
Hot Titan’s beams, which then did glister fair;
When I (…)
Walked forth to ease my pain
Along the shore of silver streaming Thames,
Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems,
Was painted all with variable flowers,
And all the meads adorned with dainty gems,
Fit to deck maidens’ bowers,
And crown their paramours,
Against the bridal day, which is not long:
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.

There, in a meadow, by the river’s side,
A flock of nymphs I chanced to espy,
All lovely daughters of the flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied,
As each had been a bride;
And each one had a little wicker basket,
Made of fine twigs, entrailed curiously,
In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,
And with fine fingers cropt full featously
The tender stalks on high.
Of every sort, which in that meadow grew,
They gathered some; the violet pallid blue,
The little daisy, that at evening closes,
The virgin lily, and the primrose true…“

Galileo Chini – L’Amore: To sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lip

“Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
(…)
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lip.”
(Khalil Gibran, from The Prophet)

Galileo Chini (Italian, 1873– 1956), L’Amore, 1919

Galileo Chini was an eclectic and vibrant figure in the Italian art scene at the turn of the century. Painter, designer, decorator, ceramic artist, and an important figure in the “Liberty style” (Stile Liberty), which was the Italian version of Art Nouveau, just as Secession was the Austrian (or rather Austro-Hungarian) version of Art Nouveau. These days I derive a great joy in simply gazing at the vibrant paintings with ornamental background, where the figures and the decorative background fight and compete for the dominance on canvas, especially in works of Klimt, but also of Vittorio Zecchin and Galileo Chini. In particular, I have enjoyed Chini’s painting “L’Amore” painted in 1919.

The painting shows two lovers, kneeling down, in an embrace. The setting is natural but whimsical, not realistically depicted but dream-like. In addition to the undefined, somewhat mysterious setting, there is another element which brings a sense of mystery to the painting; we cannot see the faces of the lovers. Chini painted it from such a wonderful perspective that the man’s face is hidden by the woman’s head and we see only the most beautiful, most important and symbolic elements; his strong arms wrapped around her and her long golden hair flowing down her back, like a golden river made out of flickering stars. The woman’s rosy pink dress is falling straight down at first and then, the moment it touches the grass, it starts spreading out like a pink puddle in which the pale pink blossoms and the stars are reflected. The surface of the painting seems to be dissolving and every little thing in the painting, especially in the background, whether a flower or a star, seems to be flickering, shimmering, twinkling, it is just such a joy to gaze at it.

The shapes are clear enough to be recognised, but abstract enough to be dreamy and to provoke the viewer to sink into a daydream. Is that a weeping willow falling from the upper left corner? An ocean of golden stars in the upper right corner? A vertical straight cloud of cherry blossoms or a sea of pink May roses right behind the couple? A round shape of a full moon falling behind the horizon? And the meadow upon the couple is kneeling, a lake made entirely of daisies or some other white flowers which are so gentle that they are almost transparent, ghostly. Is this heaven? Oh, a hug is a heaven while it lasts. Which brings to mind the lines from Andre Breton’s poem “The Road to San Romano”:

“The embrace of poetry,
Like love’s impossible, perfect fit,
Defends while it lasts
Against all the misery of the world.”

While their embrace lasts, it is a shield against the miseries of the world. Everything is so delightfully vague and so inspiring for daydreaminess. I also love the almost spiritual, otheworldy aura of their love, despite their embrace being physical and the man being naked, it seems, (or is it only in my imagination?), it seems to me this is a visual representation of the ‘confluence of souls’ as is a title of a painting I love by Max Švabinský from 1896.

Galileo Chini, La Primavera, 1914, one of the panels in the Venice Hotel Terminus

In the artwork above, “La Primavera”, from 1914, you can see more of Chini’s decorative style. I love the different decorative panels; are those vibrant circles or heads of carnations and dahlias, then the elegant women in long dresses, as beautiful as the flowers, fruit and triangles, but both so beautiful that it is incredible. I wish the world were as vibrant!

Camellia: the most deceitful of all flowers (Natsume Soseki’s The Three-Cornered World)

My go-to book for the late winter and early spring days is Natsume Soseki’s novel “The Three-Cornered World”; it is soothing, meditative, lyrical and inspiring. The story is told in the first person by the main character, a nameless thirty-year old artist, a poet and a painter, who one day sets out on a journey to the mountains, in search of Beauty and the true meaning of art. He stays at a hot spring resort where he is the only guest. One moonlit night he hears a woman singing in the garden. This mysterious beauty, called Nami, captures his imagination, not in a romantic but in an artistic way. The novel is filled with the narrator’s observations on nature, art and life. Every time I read the novel, something new catches my attention and this time it was this passage on the topic of the camellia flower so I decided to share it today. The narrator talks about the shape, the red colour of the camellia flower, the way it withers, how seductive it is… I never spend much time thinking about camellias, but now I cannot get them out of my mind! Still, there is another reference to camellias in the novel “The Lady of the Camellias” by Alexandre Dumas fils so we can conclude that camellia is a naughty flower. Enjoy the passage bellow from the novel!

Cao Jianlou, Camellia, 1981, ink and colour on paper scroll, 95.2 x 44 cm

“I was now standing beneath the spreading branches of a large tree, and suddenly felt cold. Over on the far bank camellia bushes bloomed among the shadows. Camellia leaves are too deep a green, and have no air of lightheartedness even when seen in bright sunlight. These particular bushes were in a silent huddle, set back five or six yards in an angle between the rocks, and had it not been for the blossoms I should not have known that there was anything there at all. Those blossoms! I could not of course have counted them all if I had spent the whole day at it; yet somehow their brilliance made me want to try.

The trouble with camellia blossoms is that although they are brilliant they are in no way cheerful. You find that in spite of yourself your attention is attracted by the violent blaze of colour, but once you look at them they give you an uncanny feeling. They are the most deceitful of all flowers. Whenever I see a wild camellia growing in the heart of the mountains, I am reminded of a beautiful enchantress who lures men on with her dark eyes, and then in a flash injects her smiling venom into their veins. By the time they realise that they have been tricked it is too late.

Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858), Camellia and Bullfinch, c 1833

No sooner had I caught sight of the camellias opposite than I wished I had not done so. Theirs was no ordinary red. It was a colour of eye-searing intensity, which contained some indefinable quality. Pear blossoms drooping despondently in the rain only arouse in me a feeling of pity, and the cool aronia bathed in pale moonlight strikes the chords of love. The quality of camellia blossoms, however, is altogether different. It speaks of darkness and evil, and is something to be feared. It is, moreover apparent in every gaudy petal. These blossoms do not give the impression that they are flattering you, nor do they show that they are deliberately trying to entice you. They will live in perfect serenity for hundreds of years far from the eyes of man in the shadow of the mountains, flaring into bloom and falling to earth with equal suddenness. But let a man glance at them even for an instant, and for him it is the end. He will never be able to break free from the spell of the enchantress. No, theirs is no ordinary red. It is the red of an executed criminal’s blood which automatically attracts men’s gaze and fills their hearts with sorrow.

As I stood watching, a red flower hit the water, providing the only movement in the stillness of spring. After a while it was followed by another. Camellia flowers never drift down petal by petal, but drop from the branch intact. Although this in itself is not particularity unpleasant since it merely suggests an indifference to parting, the way in which they remain whole even when they have landed is both gross and offensive to the eye. If they continue like this, I thought, they will stain the whole pond red.

Already the water in the immediate vicinity of the peacefully floating blossoms seemed to have a reddish tint. Yet another flower dropped and remained as motionless as if it had come to rest on the bank. There goes another. I wondered whether this one would sink. Perhaps over the years millions of camellia blossoms would steep in the water and, having surrendered their colour, would rot and eventually turn to mud on the bottom. If that should happen, then they might imperceptibly build up the bed of this old stagnating pond until in thousands of years time the whole area would return to the plain it had been originally. Now a large bloom plunged downwards like a blood-smeared phantom. Another fell, and another, striking the water like a shower of pattering raindrops.”

Stanislaw Wyspiański – Helena and Flowers

Stanislaw Wyspiański, Helena and Flowers, 1902

Polish painter, poet, and playwright Stanislaw Wyspiański was a very prolific artist despite his early death in 1907 at the age of thirty-eight. His mother had died of tuberculosis when he was seven, and his father was an alcoholic who was unable to take care of the family, and history repeated itself in Stanislaw’s life because his three young children were left fatherless after he died fairly young. Wyspiański’s paintings and his literary works are both seen as a bridge that succesfully connected the patriotic themes which were so popular in Romanticism and the modernist, Symbolist art currents of his times. His oeuvre mostly consists of portraits of women and girls, and some interesting landscapes. In the portraits of girls there is often an emphasis on the traditional clothing and his wife Teodora Teofila, whom he finally married in 1900, was a peasant herself which shows Wyspiański’s love for Polish countryside and the folkore tradition. His models were often his friends and family, and such is the case in this painting as well. Helena was Wyspiański’s first child and the only daughter, seven year old at the time this delightful painting was painted.

I love everything about this portrait; it is so simple and yet so stunning! Firstly, the vibrant colours. I love colours! The playful red pattern on the sleeve of the girl’s dress, the pink vase and the blue flowers; all these colours are so bubbly and fun and vibrant that the vast darkness of the table ceases to be the focus. Secondly, I love the girl’s face expression and the mood she is in. She is touching the bubble-gum pink vase with the tip of her finger and gazing at it with a calm, almost meditative curiosity. A strand of hair is partly covering her face but we can still see her sweet rosy cheeks. I can imagine Wyspianski gazing at his daughter’s sweet face gazing at the flowers and deciding to capture it in a painting. It also reminded me of a scene from Polanski’s film “Repulsion” (1965) where the shy and detached Carol (played by Catherine Deneuve) is left alone in the flat after her sister goes out on a date and she just sits in the kitchen crying because she feels lonely and left-out and suddenly she sees her reflection in the kettle. It’s an aesthetically interesting moment in the film. Similarly, little Helen here is detached from the outside world and is enamoured by the beauty of the flower pot. Lost in her world of daydreams, little did she know that her father was sketching her. The diagonal composition and the way the flowers are cropped also add to the painting’s appeal. And finally, another thing that I love is the faint reflection of the girl’s face in the surface of the table, what a wonderful little detail that makes the painting so special.