"A-ha" Moments in Exhibitions

Do you ever experience a wonderful moment when you see something in an exhibition, it suddenly resonates and explains some connection, or gives an unexpected insight into something else? I love those moments. I had a few such instances during my exhibition "orgy" in London recently. The first one came as I was marvelling at Goya's drawings in the superb "Goya: The Witches and Old Women Album" at The Courtauld Gallery. This exhibition was the first reconstruction of the dispersed 23 drawings from Francisco Goya's so-called Album D, "Witches and Old Women, produced during the wonderfully productive last decade of his life, together with other related drawings and prints.

The exhibition was riveting in every way - Goya's economy of drawing, his powers of depicting human emotions in their most raw and dramatic forms, his mordant commentaries on human foibles, all so simply done on small sheets of paper, in shades of ink - oh heavens! The scholarly work done that permits the reconstruction of this album, in a coherent and likely order of drawings, was also most fascinating and impressive.

Then, in the works accompanying the 23 drawings, there was a brush and brown ink drawing from Album B, Estas Brujas lo diran (Those Witches will tell).

Estas Brujas lo diran, Francisco Goya, brush & brown ink, (image courtesy of Prado Museum, Madrid)

I was so astonished. The line from Goya ran straight and true to Egon Schiele's Self Portraits. Goya's drawing is a haunting image of a naked old witch devouring snakes. Egon Schiele's Self-Portraits tell of equally disturbing solitary states of mind.

Self-Portrait, Egon Schiele, 1912 (Image courtesy of Leopold Museum)

Egon Schiele, Self Portrait, 1915

Both artists are fluid in their lines, their vigorous treatment of wet and dry passages of drawing media. Did Schiele know of Goya's drawing in the Prado? Or was it just happenstance, the result of two gifted draughtsmen's states of mind?

Another "aha" moment for me that stands out in my memory was when I was looking at one of several unusual Claude Monet paintings in "Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market" at the National Gallery. In the gallery showing works by Monet that Durand-Ruel had exhibited in a pioneering monographic show in 1883, , there was an arresting painting of two apple tarts or galettes on wicker platters, Les Galettes, painted in 1882 and in a private collection today.

Les Galettes, 1882, oil on canvas, Claude Monet, Private Collection

Its vigour and brio of treatment, its golds and yellows and close-cropped composition all take one straight to Vincent Van Gogh and his sunflowers or even a study of humble fishes, or bloaters. Did he see Monet's study of the Galettes - he most probably did, as he produced the first studies of cut sunflower heads some five years later.

Two Cut Sunflowers, Vincent Van Gogh, 1887, oil on canvas, (Image courtesy of Kunstmuseum, Bern)

Two Cut Sunflowers, oil on canvas, 1887. Vincent Van Gogh (Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, New York)

Bloaters on a Piece of Yellow Paper, oil on canvas, 1889, Vincent Van Gogh

The third moment of fascination for me was in the same Impressionist exhibition, again a Monet painting done in 1875, The Coal Carriers. Monet had seen workers unloading coal for the Clichy gasworks from the train from Argenteuil to Paris, and painted this work partly from memory.

The Coal Carriers, oil on canvas. Claude Monet, c. 1875 (Image courtesy of the Musee d'Orsay, Paris)

The rhythmic placement of the men on the gangplanks, the silhouettes and dark colours somehow reminded me of many of the Japanese ukiyo-e prints, their rhythms and cropped views. Monet was an avid admirer of the new wave of Japanese prints coming in to Paris at that time.

Twilight Moon at Ryogoku Bridge from series Famous Views of the Eastern Capital, Utagawa Hiroshige

Utagawa Hiroshige: Twilight View of the Snow-clad Ryogoku Bridge

I love these moments when you can link up artists, influences and inspirations. They validate one's own endeavours as an artist as you study and view other artists' works, not to copy, but to use as pathways to grow and spread wings.

Art and Cooking

A story in today's NPR All Things Considered about cooking a Tuna Noodle Casserole started with a statement that immediately had me making a parallel with art.  Melissa Gray was citing food editor and author Ellen Brown discussing her recipe for this dish.  She started by quoting Ellen Brown saying that many food professionals claim that we eat with our eyes first. Brown however disputes this claim and thinks that it is not with our senses that we approach food, but with our emotions.

I think that the same order of priorities often comes to play when we approach art.  Long before we start looking at paintings or drawings, for instance, we are in a mood and frame of mind to look at art. In many cases, we make a conscious decision to go to an art museum or an art gallery. So we have already elected to go in a frame of mind that is open to viewing art, for reasons that range from experiencing beauty to learning about an artist's work, or, on occasions, to purchasing a work of art. Of course, there are other times when we round a corner, or just happen on, a work of art that stops us in our tracks.  But bound up with the visual experience always comes a rush of emotion - interest, delight, surprise, incomprehension – a full gamut of reactions or emotions is possible.

Only after that first visceral reaction do we start to use our eyes to study the work of art and understand more about it.  Perhaps then the same effect can happen as occurs when we have a plate of attractively presented food placed in front of us.  Colour, shape, texture, form – all count at that point.

But I think Ellen Brown has a point: just as we associate a certain dish that we know with pleasant past experiences (or the reverse!), so we associate certain artists' works with previously experienced emotions positive or negative.  For most people, "Claude Monet" means beautiful Impressionist landscapes that radiate luminosity and delight the viewer. 

The Manneporte (Etretat), Claude Monet, oil on canvas, image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Antibes vue de la Salis, Claude Monet, 1888, image courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio

The name, "Titian", conveys to many viewers a sense of marvel and admiration at extraordinary portraits, long before one's eyes can feast on the skill and virtuosity with which he depicts his subjects. 

Portrait of an Old Man (Pietro Cardinal Bembo), Titian, 1546 ,Image courtesy of  Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest)

"Rodin" means wondrous, sensuous, powerful shapes sculpted in plaster, marble or bronze; it is only later that our eyes can tell us exactly how and why we find his work so memorable.

Eternal Springtime, Auguste Rodin, 1880-1901, image courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Emotions and/or senses – basically Ellen Brown is talking about the same important ingredients of life as we all are - enhancing and celebrating life through beauty, interest, taste. Both cooking and art help us get though each day with  enjoyment.

Creative viewing

Before the glory of Christmas cactus flowers fades on my different Schlumbergera, I have been drawing them in silverpoint, especially the delicate white-flowered ones.

Christmas Cactus

As I gazed at the elegant cactus flowers, I could not help remembering a quote I found some time ago by Monet.

He said, "To see, we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at." It is almost as if I needed to blank out my conscious mind and just let the rhythms and undulations of the petals and the strange leaves tell me where to go and how to compose a drawing. It is absolutely academic what it is that is the subject of the drawing - only the aspects of it that resonate and excite one are the ones that drive the mark-making. In fact, as soon as the left hand side of the brain begins to get active, defining or thinking consciously, that is when one gets into trouble with the drawing. And in silverpoint, that is a bad place to reach, given you don't erase the marks made in silver.

Claude Monet knew well about the need to view things in a different fashion. His wonderful use of colour and Impressionistic techniques are testimony to this philosophy. When you think of his extraordinary series of paintings of Rouen Cathedral, for example, his was a very creative view of this wonderful structure. Given the very complicated act of painting this immense building, with the light that was ever-fleeting and the unreliable weather of this maritime city, Monet was amazing in his ability speedily to record light, darks, abstract shapes, atmosphere – as in this painting done between 1892 and 1894, entitled Rouen Cathedral Facade (Morning Effect).

Rouen Cathedral Facade (Morning Effect), 1892-94, Claude Monet (Image courtesy of Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany.

There is another interesting optic on creating a piece of art, whether recording a cathedral's glory or drawing a Christmas cactus flower.

William S. Burroughs observed that "Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his (or her!) hopes for other people are that they will also make it exist by observing it." A perfect description of "creative viewing"on the part of artist and then the public. I am sure that most of the French who walked past their looming cathedral did not see it in any way similar to Monet; they probably did not often raise their heads to its soaring facades as they went about their daily lives. Yet after Monet painted his series on Rouen Cathedral, certainly many more people became aware of its massive structure and the extraordinary play of light on it as the seasons turned.

Monet has made the Cathedral "exist" for art lovers ever since he began his series of paintings there in the 1890s. They, in turn, validate Monet by observing his paintings and completing the circle of creative existence.

In the same way, an artist who embarks on a painting, drawing or other form of depiction of something "real" is, in essence, bringing that thing to life, creating it according to his or her artistic eye. This gives one wide licence to create, to bring into existence, but it also implies an often revealing personal involvement - assuming that the art is being created with passion. Sobering thoughts, but mercifully, during the painting or drawing, as Monet wisely observed, we need first to turn off our brains.

Artists and Gardens

Now that the weather has cooled a little and rain has revived the garden, it is time to start thinking of planning and planting the garden once more. Inspired by a recent wonderful Coastal Wildscapes symposium on planting native species to restore biodiversity in one's surroundings and gardens, I have been doing a lot of "mental placement" of perennials and shrubs that I purchased.

My garden has been an extension of my art and a source of my art ever since I created the garden over 25 years ago. After we built our house and learned about the aspects of living on ancient sand dunes in a sub-tropical climate, I planned out - on graph paper no less! - what plants to put where. I tried to combine the principles of garden composition and visual pleasures with the practical aspects of a huge amount of shade, sandy soil and a number of old shrubs that had been planted on the site when it was an oyster cannery. Oh - and speaking of which, I learned that planting in soil that is probably 90% oyster shells can be challenging!

Needless to say, over the years, the garden has evolved and matured, with the plants very much choosing where and how they wish to grow. For the most part, I have let nature dictate, for the results have in some ways been more harmonious than if I had adhered more to the carefully manicured look of my British gardening heritage. As a source of art, I tend to concentrate on single flowers or plants, rather than landscapes of the garden itself. Watercolours - I find - are not the easiest medium by which to convey masses of foliage and flowers. Drawings are more interesting to do.

Perhaps the most important element of the garden for my art is the actual peaceful environment it affords - a backdrop to my daily life and thus to my art-making. The constant visual stimulation and interest combine with my emotional attachment to this garden I created single-handedly. It is also the foreground frame to the marshes and saltwater creeks beyond. Together, these spaces offer tranquillity and the orderliness (most of the time!) of nature, the antidote to our ever-increasingly urbanised society.

Artists have long had deep attachments to gardens. Think of the wonderful details of flowers and animals on the frescoes in Egyptian tombs. Remember the jewel-like flowers and insects adorning monastic manuscripts from the 8th century onwards, like this 1470s Hastings Book of Hours. Artists over the centuries have travelled from medieval depictions of gardens as paradise to careful scientific examinations in modern times. Rubens was well aware of gardens as erotic playgrounds.

470s Hastings Book of Hours

But it was the 19th century artists who not only drew on gardens for inspiration in their art, but also themselves created their own very artistic gardens. Monet (whose 1900 painting The Garden in Flower is illustrated) is the most famous of these gardeners, with Giverny. (He had earlier been inspired and delighted when he visited glowing Mediterranean gardens, especially at Bordigher.)

The Garden in Flower, Giverny, 1900, oil on canvas, Claude Monet

Cézanne also painted and tended his Southern French garden, while Van Gogn celebrated gardens and what grew in them from his days in Holland onwards. Many of his drawings in the south of France, particularly those done during his period at St Rémy, are quite remarkable. So too are his paintings, such as this one, done in 1889,

Irises, Vincent van Gogh, 1889, oil on canvas, (Image courtesy of the Getty Center)

Almond Blossom, Vincent van Gogh, 1890, oil on canvas.(Image courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum)

As the resurgence of plein air art continues, many of the artists are also celebrating gardens in their art. It is important, for as the world continues to lose natural habitats at an ever-increasing rate, we artists can play an important role in showing how beautiful, intricate and serene-making gardens and nature can be.

Plein air painting large scale

When the weather improved (i.e. less humidity and heat) as hurricane Earl went north far off the Georgia coast, it was the first opportunity of the summer to go outside to paint. Bliss!

I had been looking at a scene out over the marshes and water, and felt it required a full sheet of watercolour, 30 x 22 inches. That is about the maximum size I can cope with outdoors as otherwise the board and paper become a sail as soon as it is windy. Since I sit and don't use an easel, I also find that my arm needs to "lengthen" to reach the top of the painting. There is another consideration too - because of the size, the painting tends to take much longer to do. This usually means returning to the same spot several times to catch the same light conditions on different days, always a gamble with our changeable weather.

Indeed, I am now into week two of trying to complete the painting, which makes me listen carefully to weather forecasts. But as I was painting, I remembered back to the famous story about Claude Monet when he decided, in 1866, to execute a large canvas outdoors in preparation for the juried Salon. He was in a rented house in Ville D'Avray, a Parisian suburb, living with his model-mistress, Camille. Since he chose to paint this huge canvas, over 8 ft. high by nearly 7 ft wide (2.55 x2.05 metres), he dug a deep trench into which to lower the canvas so he could reach the top whilst remaining at the same vantage point. He also rigged up a pulley system to raise and lower the canvas. Monet was intent on depicting light and shade, air movement and the sense of outdoors, although the ostensible subject was the four women (modelled by Camille). Femmes au Jardin or Women in the Garden was a huge undertaking; apparently Monet was rigorous about being faithful to the light, even to the point that he refused to paint the leaves on the trees if the light was "wrong".

Claude Monet (1840-1926),Femmes au jardin, Vers 1866,Huile sur toile H. 255 ; L. 205 cm (Image courtesy of  Musée d'Orsay, Paris)

His friend, the journalist/writer, Emile Zola, was witness to this herculean effort and remarked that Money had a "very exacting eye for contemporary life". The final irony of this whole effort was that Femmes au Jardin was refused by the Salon. However, in 1921, Monet had the satisfaction of seeing it acquired by the French Government for a goodly price (and it is now on view at the Muséed'Orsay). So much for his most ambitious plein air painting venture.

At least I am not into trenches and pulley for my latest painting! But I still need to get on and finish it before the scene changes completely with autumn coming.

More on "Artists' Eyes on the Skies"

I heard a fascinating addendum to my blog entry of June 7th about artwork helping to unravel meteorologist mysteries of the past on NPR today. With the title, "Scientists pinpoint Monet's Balcony", host Guy Raz interviewed John Thornes, Professor of Applied Meteorology at Birmingham University.

Like other scientists looking at artists' work to learn of past weather conditions and other situations, John Thornes has been studying Claude Monet's paintings which he did in London in the winters of 1899-1901. These famous paintings of Waterloo and Charing Cross Bridges and along the Thames to the Houses of Parliament - 95 images in total - were painted from the balcony of his rooms at the Savoy Hotel. As Monet did so often, he worked on different canvases as the light moved. He apparently used the morning light to depict Waterloo Bridge, the midday hours to paint the Charing Cross Bridge and ended his busy days capturing the sunsets along the river towards the Houses of Parliament.

Impression, Sunrise,  1872, oil on canvas, Claude Monet, (Image courtesy of the Musee Marmottan)

Professor Thornes and his team used solar geometry and historical weather data to determine exactly which balconies of the Savoy had become Monet's painting sites, based on the sunlight that Monet painted in each canvas. Monet, like many other artists, was amazingly accurate in his representation of the prevailing weather, so the visual coloured record of wintertime London is also one of the famous "pea souper" conditions that prevailed for so long in the smoky, foggy city. Monet, in fact, damaged his health by exposure to all that pollution, even though he apparently considered all the smog as an "envelope" between him and the scenery.

Clearly scientists have a rich resource to mine in artists' observations of the skies and world around them. For John Thornes, for example, the next of Monet's paintings to be examined for meteorological information is his Impression, Sunrise, the canvas painted at Le Havre that purportedly gave rise to the name of Impressionism. It must be a thrill to combine one's passions for art and science in these sleuthing ventures.

How much should one change one's style as an artist over time?

I have read a couple of enthusiastic reviews of an exhibition currently showing at New York's Onassis Cultural Center entitled The Origins of El Greco, the last of which was in February's edition of ARTnews. With a subtitle of Icon Painting in Venetian Crete, the show examined El Greco's early work when he, along with a flourishing school of artists, was a Master of religious icon painting in his native Crete in the 1560s. Young Domenikos Theotokopoulos was most skilled in creating shimmering gilt surrounds and stiffly gesturing figures that were part of the Byzantine heritage of Crete.

Adoration of the Magi, Domenikos Theotokopoulos (later known as El Greco), 1565-67, painted on part of an old chest, (Image courtesy of the Benaki Museum,Athens)

It is hard to credit that these early paintings are done by the same artist whom we know as El Greco, the artist whose elongated figures, clothed in strangely coloured garments, twist in religious fervour beneath dramatic skies. Ascetic-looking men with long faces gaze skyward with clasped hands of piety, while impossibly long-limbed men writhe and contort through the paintings. This later El Greco was, as a review of this exhibition by The New York Times' Holland Cotter observed, the result of "an ambitious career on the move" with Venice and later Spain his sources of patronage and success. By the time El Greco died in 1614, his style of painting had evolved radically from a strict medieval icon tradition to an expressionistic approach that embraced light, movement, colour, passion.

The Baptism of Christ, c. 1614, El Greco, (Image courtesy of Museo  Fundacion Lerma, Hospital de Tavera, Toledo)

This account of the El Greco exhibition made me reflect on the problem-cum-challenge we all face as artists: how to evolve and grow, and yet remain true to ourselves? The examples of artists who have changed their styles over time are innumerable - Picasso is a salient example, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, and so many others. But in our times of emphasis on marketing and branding, when presenting ourselves to the world as artists, how important is it to have consistency?

There is always the temptation for a successful artist, selling well in one type of art or with one approach and subject, to stay in that idiom, and if a gallery is involved, often there is more pressure to stay in the successful lane. Yet we should all be striving to grow as artists, and by definition, that means change and, hopefully, improvement. Sometimes, repetition of one type of art, one subject or medium, allows for a more profound and rewarding exploration. Yet repetition can become boring and a dead end.

There is also another message, I think, in the El Greco or Picasso examples of evolution as artists. That is that we must believe in ourselves as artists and dare to grow and change, even if it means abandoning a successful style and pathway in one's artistic career. Radical change takes courage. Artist Sharon Knettell, writing in the March 2010 issue of The Artist's Magazine, explained that she gets much of her inspiration for paintings while meditating and remarked, "I think meditation makes you fearless. You have to go to the point where your ideas scare and challenge you" (my emphasis).

I believe that point is when you dare to change your style because that inner voice tells you to take the next step in changing and evolving as an artist. What does anyone else think?

Flowers in Art

After a week of much colder weather, the flower garden is definitely in winter mode, save for a few brave camellias now venturing to bloom again. They are one of the most beautiful aspects of Southern gardens for me, and I can never plant enough of them, particularly the whites and pale shell pinks.

Since there is so little variety outside, I have been going through flower paintings in my mind's eye. This was made all the easier as I have been thinking about medieval times, when religious texts were becoming more and more luxurious, with an increasing demand for Books of Hours by wealthy patrons. Many of these jewel-like small creations are bedecked with the most wonderful depictions of flowers, many of them with floral symbols to underline the religious truths of the texts. An introduction to some of these images, with colours glowing and flowers ranging from pinks to violets, asters, forget-me-nots, daisies or roses, shows that by 1410, artists were producing the most amazing Books of Hours for patrons such as Catherine of Cleves, Flemish or French nobility.

 Produced in the Netherlands in about 1460, this Book  of Hours is from the Euing Collection. University of Glasgow

Perhaps the most famous is Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, painted from 1412-1416 almost exclusively by the three Limbourg brothers, Paul, Henri and Jean. Interestingly, there are not many details of flowers, but even here, in one image of a Funeral Service, campanula wander amongst the text on one column.

Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Folio 86, verso: The Funeral of Raymond Diocrès, between 1411 and 1416 and between 1485 and 1486

By 1500, the use of flowers in Books of Hours was widespread, as can be seen in this edition done in Rouen, France, held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Palma's Book of Hours, silverpoint and watercolour, Jeannine Cook artist

I created Palma's Book of Hours, done in silverpoint and watercolour, thinking of the tobacco/nicotiana  as the flowers opened and closed each day in a rhythm which marked off the hours for me in perfumed regularity.

Another early devotional book, the Wilton Diptych, was created in England c. 1395-1399, for the purposes of accompanying its rich travelling owner. In one scene, pink roses adorn the angels' heads, but apparently they were originally the red Rosa Gallica, one of the earliest known rose varieties.

Richard II presented to the Virgin and Child by his Patron Saint John the Baptist and Saints Edward and Edmund (‘The Wilton Diptych’), Anonymous, ca. 1395, egg on oak, 53 x 37 cm, National Gallery

Detail of the Wilton Diptych

Detail of the Wilton Diptych

An image of this can be found, amongst others, on a wonderful web page on the BBC. This site depicts a wide variety of flower paintings down the ages and it underlines the continuous attraction for artists of flowers, in their beautiful diversity and elegance. This is hardly surprising when one thinks that we humans have always known flowers - they have been in existence for about 120 million years. Fascinatingly, they have apparently always played a central role for humans - archaeologists have found a burial site for a man, two women, and a child, in a cave in Iraq. They were Neanderthals, living in these Pleistocene caves. On this burial site had been placed a bunch of flowers.

The Greeks placed great store on flowers, such as violets and had them in their houses and wore them in crowns at feast times. The Romans did the same and held festivals of flowers to honour the goddess, Flora. Remember the fresco uncovered in Pompeii of Flora and her flowers. Roses were the flower of the goddess of love, Venus; roses too have always been celebrated by Confucians and Buddhists.

The early Renaissance artists loved to depict lilies in Annunciation scenes - Fra Filippo Lippi was one of the early ones in 1450, for instance.  Leonardo da Vinci did the most exquisite drawings of Regale lilies. You can almost feel the weight of the flowers as he studied them and drew them in pen and ink. The Pre-Raphaelites also loved lilies - on the BBC site I mentioned earlier, there is a reproduction of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Annunciation" with the lilies the most graceful complement. Then there is the wondrously atmospheric John Singer Sargent painting, "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose", done in 1885-6, with the children and beautiful tall, proud lilies in the luminous twilight.

The seventeenth century was also the heyday of Dutch flower painting, done by both men and women. One of the most successful was Rachel Ruysch, while another was Judith Leyster, who did some silverpoint drawings of tulips. Flemish-born Ambrosius Bosschaert was one of the first to specialise in flower paintings and others like Jan van Huysum and Jan Bruegel followed his footsteps with looser, often more brilliant styles. Since a lot of the Dutch flower paintings were also about Holland's wide-flung world power and dominance, as well as the flowers' beauty, the artists did not hesitate to mix up flowers from all parts of the world, which would never bloom at the same time. They composed the most astonishing mixes in their arrangements, requiring a lot of time and ingenuity to pull the complex compositions together.

France forged a different approach to flower painting. Pierre Joseph Redouté began his highly talented life as a flower painter under Queen Marie Antoinette's patronage, but the Empress Josephine hastened to continue the patronage after the Revolution. His wonderfully sensitive "portraits" of flowers and plants are so realistic one can almost smell the perfume, for instance, of his roses, and he managed also to combine careful science with astonishing art. He helped pioneer a whole sub-group of botanical artists whose numbers, today, have swelled amazingly and fruitfully throughout the world. Take a look at the American Society of Botanical Artists' website, for instance - I am proud to be a member of the burgeoning Society. (Dr. Shirley Sherwood, of London, has been one of the major supporters of this renaissance of botanical art, and now her collection is not only showing in many venues around the world, but also at Kew in a permanent, dedicated gallery.)

The second half of the 19th century produced some wonderful flower painters in France - Manet did some exquisite studies of flowers in vases, while Henri Fatin-Latour became famous for the way in which he painted roses and peonies, larkspur and other wonderful summer flowers. He would wait until the roses almost dropped their petals, so as to be able to capture that ultimate fullness of musky beauty in each petal. Monet delighted in his flower garden, culminating with the glories of Giverny and his lily pond, while Renoir and Degas were no slouches in their depictions of chrysanthemums, geraniums and other plants. Of course, everyone knows about Vincent van Gogh and his passionate sunflower paintings – he had moved far from the exquisite jewels of medieval flower painting, but left all of us the richer for both approaches. Odilon Redon comes to mind too for his pastel studies of flowers that were far beyond just the botanical and yet are brilliantly evocative in their somewhat strange feel.

The twentieth century seems to have always had its lovers of flower paintings. An interesting note I saw was that 55% of all art considered "decorative" and available today is floral art. No wonder there was a reaction against flower paintings in juried shows for a long time! Nonetheless, a lot of us artists have continued to celebrate flowers in art - they are just too important to ignore, and besides, when a garden is in the depths of winter, at least one can evoke warmer times by having paintings or drawings of flowers on the walls.