The meaning of flowers and plants
|
Since ancient times flowers
are associated with that life and both beauty are short-lived. The flowers of
fruit trees as preliminary stage for the growth of fruit and
still lifes with flower as Vanitas themes shows the transformations of life.
Admiring, germinating, growing and imagining flowers gives me strength because
through this way I try to defy time and leave an impression that can be looked
at for a long time.I have described a number
of flower types that regularly appear in my work as an important source of
inspiration.
Sea-weeds
The flowing
floating branches and wisps of seaweed in the lagoon, some with their roots
attached to the side of the shore or others floating with the current of the
water, were one of my source for inspiration to ‘The waters of Venice’. The
curling, spiraling, circulating and tossing motions of the seaweed reminded me
of the threat of rising sea levels around the city.
Passiflora or Passionflower
This flower
fascinates me the most because of its name and in my view has an
extraterrestrial shape and with the odd numbers namely in the 3 pistils, 5
petals and 10 leaves in the underlying foliage. 3 / 5 /10. In numerology, these
numbers have a special meaning. The 3 for the trinity, artistic energy and
pyramid shape, the 5 for courage and personal freedom and the 10 for end of a
cycle and completion. There are 500 known species and this flower has its origin
in south America and dicovered in the 16e century. The plant is also
a medicinal plant for the heart to calm it down. In my work, this calming
effect of this flower is far from visible and rather reversed.
Spanish
missionaries saw in the passion flower the crucifixion story of Jesus Christ.
In my own way I experience it as a spiritual flower and that is in addition to
the odd numbers also in the color scheme: the deep black, light yellow, purple
tones and deep red. And in 2015 I grew this plant in our courtyard garden for a
year. The interpretation of the flower depends on the content of my work some
in more realistic form or more in abstraction.
Datura or Trumpet Flower
In my new series of this year 'The Singing Bells' I was inspired by the
Datura plant, also called Trumpet plant or Thorn apple. I can remember when I
was in art school reading books by Carlos Castaneda, the lessons of Don Juan,
which described the Datura and the spiritual journey of this American writer
where the plant is used as a drug in Mexico and induces hallucinations and can
be fatal if misused due to toxicity. But this under the wise lessons of the
Mexican wizard Don Juan Matus. It fascinated me, but also that so much beauty
can be so dangerous and this stayed in my subconscious for years.
Through my many walks in the Amsterdam Amstelpark, I
found the Datura at the Orangerie of that park. And even in 2017 found
a beautiful Trumpet plant at the front of a house in Amsterdam. I used
several photos of this plant later as a source of inspiration for my
recently new series The Singing Bells. Using the spiritual value and the
trumpet-like overwhelming beautiful shape that evokes a positive charge in me,
I first need a certain emotional distance through time to give it my own
meaning. Prior to the pastel painting 'The Pink Bells', it took 5 years to
reach that distance.
Hollyhock
We have a large communal indoor garden in Amsterdam that I supervise and
take care of together with the garden specialists. Over the years I have grown
more and more hollyhocks by first germinating them on my balcony in small pots
and then into the garden. Each hollyhock has about 40 seeds for each
finished flower bud as stock for new growth. Just calculate how many seeds 1
plant can produce because infact that nature is very generous in spreading new
life and that gives hope. The first hollyhocks, about 6 years ago, grew up to 3
meters high. I took pictures of it and incorporated it into my pastel paintings
Tulip
Besides the
Rose the Tulip having the same symbol of Love but also the vanity of earthly
things. Turkish
traders brought from Persia the Tulip in the 16th century to Europe. By the
start of the 17e century in Holland the Tulip enjoyed great popularity
and some where rare and therefore very expensive. The success of the flowers
was so great having speculations on the colors of the new bulbs that it became
winning and losing of large sums of money in the proces. An all out mania until
1637 when the market collapsed. Even the Estates General wasn’t able to stem
the financial panic. Because of the ‘costly’ beauty of the Tulip it appears in
many Vanitas paintings.
In addition to the described flower species, I have a
preference for 'wild species' that grow on the roadside or in meadows where I
took a lot of pictures of.
|
 
Inspired by the Tulip
 inspired by the passion flower
 |