“What flowers are to our gardens, the arts are to life.”
—Jean-Claude-Richard de Satin Non (French Printmaker)
Spring is emerging (to varying degrees)! Ripe with metaphor and beauty, the garden is one of the oldest motifs in the history of art, inspiring many delightful and familiar works.
Let’s take a look at a handful of them:
Garden fresco from the tomb of Nebamun, Egypt; c. 1380 B.C.; British Museum
Garden fresco at the Villa of Livia, Rome (detail); 1st century B.C. These Roman wall paintings showed an extraordinary amount of naturalism.
The Unicorn Rests in a Garden (from the Unicorn Tapestries), 1495-1505; designed in France, woven in Netherlands; Wool warp with wool, silk, silver, and gilt wefts. This style of tapestry is known as “millefleurs”, or “a thousand flowers”.
Annunciation by Fra Angelico (Italian), ca. 1435; Tempera on panel, altarpiece; Museo del Prado, Madrid. Many paintings of the Annunciation include a garden, representing the virginity of Mary. This version by the Dominican friar, Fra Angelico, displays the narrative of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from paradise - and the redemption to come.
The Artist's Garden in Argenteuil by Claude Monet, 1873; oil on canvas. Claude Monet claimed his garden in Giverny as his “most beautiful masterpiece”. He spent twenty-five years of his life tending and painting that garden, which was full of flowers, willows, and water lilies.
Dahlias, Garden at Petit Gennevilliers by Gustave Caillebotte, 1893; oil on convas. French impressionist, Caillebotte, was close friends with Monet, and the two shared a deep love of gardening.
Peupliers, temps gris, Éragny (Springtime, Grey Weather, Éragny) by Camille Pissarro (French), 1895; Oil on canvas
“The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all.” —Wendell Berry
A Cottage Garden with Chickens by Peter Mørk Mønsted (Danish), 1919; oil on canvas
Garden Scene from Marstrand on the West Coast of Sweden by Carl Larsson (Swedish), 1889; watercolor
Farm Garden with Sunflowers by Gustav Klimt (Austrian), 1907; oil on canvas
Chrysanthemums and Horsefly by Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese), 1833-1834; Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Gardening by Natalia Goncharova (Russian), 1908; oil on canvas. Goncharova’s style often combined elements of modern art with traditional folk art.
Hoosier Garden by Gustave Baumann (American), 1927-1961; Color woodcut.
In the Garden by Romare Bearden (American), 1974; screenprint
Sometimes I remember my grandfather’s house, A garden with tiger lilies, my grandmother Waving a white apron to passing trains On that trestle across the clay road.
—from the poem, “Sometimes,” by Bearden
Childhood's Garden by Charles E. Burchfield (American), 1917; watercolor
“Of late there have been rare instances when childhood impressions would flash across my mind—it is not that I wish to go back, or mourn for the past. I only wish I might look at nature new as I did then…”
-Charles E. Burchfield, Journals; August 4, 1914
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent (American), 1885-86; oil on canvas
Summer flowers by Cedric Morris (British), 1924; oil on canvas
Fleurs de printemps (La Cruche aux fleurs de printemps) by Marc Chagall (Russian-French), 1930; Oil on canvas
“We couldn’t do without flowers.” - Marc Chagall
Irises by Vincent van Gogh (Dutch); 1889; oil on canvas
“How right it is to love flowers and the greenery of pines and ivy and hawthorn hedges; they have been with us from the very beginning.”
― Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
First Steps, after Millet by Vincent van Gogh (Dutch); 1890; oil on canvas
Page from Emily Dickinson’s herbarium (Houghton Library, Harvard University). At the age of 14, the poet Emily Dickinson made a herbarium that contained 424 specimens. She would often include a dried flower along with a poem when she wrote to a friend, once noting: “Did you ever know that a flower, once withered and freshened again, becomes an immortal flower, - that is, that it rises again?”.
Illustration for The Tale of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter (English); watercolor; 1902
Tasha Tudor’s (American) Illustration for The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnet; Watercolor and graphite on paper; ca. 1962
“Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us.”
Beautiful post- my two favorites are Dahlias, Garden by Caillebotte and Larssons Garden Scene from Marstrand. It’s a dream to have big and bountiful flower gardens! Sadly, I’ve never had much luck with flowers, though I scattered some Phlox in the front landscaping one year and it self-seeded at random since. I’ll find bright pink and purple Star-Shaped flowers occasionally across the yard, which is delightful.
Root vegetables do really well here in our sandy soil so that’s mostly what I plant these days, and while they aren’t as beautiful, I’m thankful that at least I have something to show for my hopes and dreams in gardening!
Beautiful post- my two favorites are Dahlias, Garden by Caillebotte and Larssons Garden Scene from Marstrand. It’s a dream to have big and bountiful flower gardens! Sadly, I’ve never had much luck with flowers, though I scattered some Phlox in the front landscaping one year and it self-seeded at random since. I’ll find bright pink and purple Star-Shaped flowers occasionally across the yard, which is delightful.
Root vegetables do really well here in our sandy soil so that’s mostly what I plant these days, and while they aren’t as beautiful, I’m thankful that at least I have something to show for my hopes and dreams in gardening!
I love this post! I haven’t had much success growing flowers, but I love to grow tomatoes! Haha!