Flowers in Art

Expressing emotions and sentiments through flowers has long been a part of our human interactions. Their visual and sensual beauty is insurmountable and this has led many an artist to choose flowers as their favourite subject to paint. And though, unlike fresh flowers, these paintings cannot bring the smells and the feel of real flowers into your room, they can certainly bring a feel of nature and remind someone of their utter beauty. Some of the more famous artists to have painted flowers include Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse and more recently – Georgia O Keefe.

Flower paintings, it seems, have particularly been associated with impressionism. Van Gogh’s paintings are recognised the world over and it is his painting of sunflowers in particular which have impressed so much and in the photo here, have even made it on to a stamp. Van Gogh’s paintings of sunflowers are said to treat each of these wonderful flowers almost as a subject in its own right as there are definite differences in the structure of these flowers in most of these paintings. Van Gogh even commented to his brother that he’s going to make the sunflower his own. For van Gogh, to paint sunflowers was beautiful – they were awkward and lumpy, whilst undoubtedly beautiful and quite glorious at the same time.

Another great artist who was also influenced by impressionism and who loved to paint beautiful things like flowers was Henri Matisse. Matisse’s passion for bright colours and broad strokes lent itself easily to flower paintings. He even commented “There are always flowers for those who want to see them”. He was well known for putting flowers next to his paintings to see how rich the colours in his pictures are (often he would find that they’re actually not in comparison to the texture of the flowers).

Vase with flowers by Henri Matisse

Obviously it is not just the artists who have been influenced by impressionism that have painted flowers. There have been many, many others both prior and after. In our own time artists have recognized the beauty and endurance of flowers and this was reflected by a famous American artist Georgia O’Keeffe who commented:

“Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven’t time – and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time. If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower is small. So I said to myself – I’ll paint what I see – what the flower is to me but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it – I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers. …Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think”…

"Red poppy flower" by Georgia O'Keeffe

It is of no surprise then that O’Keeffe’s flower paintings had stopped viewers in their tracks as the absurd beauty and abundant sensuality of flowers was shown by her imaginative and original way of painting. It will be of no surprise for us to say that we will keep admiring these paintings and await any new geniuses looking to paint our glorious flowers with open arms.