by Delaynna Trim, Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art Curator of Collections
March 20th is the first day of Spring according to astronomers, though we are used to celebrating it on March 21st. Are you excited about Spring? I am! Spring is the time of year when flowers and plants start growing again and blooming. The Spring or Vernal Equinox (Vernal means new and equinox comes from the Latin that means “equal night”) means that we have been getting more and more daylight as the winter has continued so that now we will have equal day and night hours with daylight getting longer until the Summer Solstice.
When we think of Spring, we think of flowers. Or at least I do! Have you spent time in the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art’s courtyard? You can visit our fish and enjoy the flowers and trees. You might even see a squirrel!
Artists have enjoyed painting flowers for thousands of years. How many paintings in the
MGMoA have flowers? Have you noticed the irises in the Reflexion painting by Bouguereau?
Did you know that flowers can have symbolic meaning? There are meanings like red roses are for love, yellow roses are friendship, and pink roses mean admiration or gratitude. There are also meanings of flowers in paintings.
The Virgin Mary is often shown with white lilies that represent purity. But, in Roman mythology, the lily came from spilled milk from when Juno was feeding Hercules. The fleur-de-lis, a symbol of France, is a stylized lily. The lily even became the heraldic emblem of the city of Florence, Italy.
Jasmine represents grace, elegance, and divine love. You might be most familiar with jasmine as a fragrance in many perfumes. The sunflower, like the ones painted by Vincent Van Gogh, represent devotion.
The poppy represents sleep, death, and night, as well as the Passion of Christ and the Eucharist. The poppy’s connection to sleep comes from Ovid’s description of the realm of Sleep being a hidden cave at the end of a field of poppies. The poppy becomes connected to night, sleep, dreams, and even death in the ancient world. In Christian symbolism, the bright red color represents the blood of Christ and so is a symbol of the Passion of Christ. But, poppies also grow in fields of grain, so there is a connection to bread, which connects the poppy to the bread of the Eucharist. Many people wear a poppy on Remembrance Day (November 11, 2023) to observe the end of World War I and remember those that died. The poppy became the symbol for Remembrance Day due to the poppies growing in No Man’s Land during the war and being memorialized In Flander’s Fields written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.
The rose is often considered a symbol of love and was sacred to Venus, the Roman goddess of love. But, also in ancient Rome, the rose had a connection to the cult of the dead with the Rosalia, a celebration of roses. In Christianity, the rose became a symbol of martyrdom due to the thorns.
Spread some color and cheer by painting some brightly colored flowers for your family and friends. If you want a challenge, try creating a 3D flower out of paper. For more information visit www.mgmoa.org/art-projects/
