Dear You, 
May does not need me - May just is.
If you wonder what I'm talking about: each day I stop for a few minutes at my neighbour's garden - enjoying the results of her toil for free - though I pay abundantly with praise. (Once I thought that I had invented a new profession: The True Praiser. (Lauder) People, I thought, might book me and hear what they are so thirsty for: real, genuine (!) praise of things they have accomplished - things everybody takes for granted, or, worse, does not even notice). Maybe I should create a Start Up? Anyone interested out there?
No - May does not need any praise - it is overwhelming HERE with its abundance of roses, iris, elder.
Bathes us in huge clouds of perfume, showers us with sun shine, dries us with hot air - and the song of the birds come for free. Such a bliss - and life is beautiful!
As you know I have a deep interest in flowers and plants - as a gardener, botanist and ardent admirer. I take photographs of flowers - which sometimes I like quite well - and sometimes I also paint some, though here you can foolishly hear me mumble: "Not real Art. Nice, yes, but.. artisan craftwork at it's best."
Views not shared completely by Albrecht Dürer, who retorts: "For truly, art is rooted in nature, and whoever can draw it out, has it".
Yet often flowers were used by artists as background painting (I "collect" them with my camera - only the flower, not the whole painting).
At the moment a beautiful exhibition on "MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN and the Tradition of Flower Painting" is shown at the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Maria Sibylla Merian was an highly gifted painter of flowers - and a very remarkable woman.
She died 300 years ago. (!!)
The exhibition starts with a broad overview of floral book illustrations of the 15th century, nature studies from Dürer's time and apothecary books from early 16th century, and wonderful portrayals of flowers by the famous Georg Flegel.
As Sibylla, they all painted insects too - but as the first mosquitos and wasps have already arrived, I am not keen on them.
Yes: flower painting is beautiful, and sometimes Art. And often surprising too: you might have seen Rachel's phantastic little drawings of flowers - especially the poppies got me, done in nail varnish, and I look musingly at "Chili Bean", my voluptious dark red nail varnish - which I seldom use, because Life is too Short to spend time on repairing flaking nail varnish in my active life. There might be a better way to use it?
Anyway: I bought a season ticket for our Botanical Garden.
Nice to meet you - hope you guess my name! (I'm just sitting on a fence!)
As Claude Monet said "I must have flowers always and always" - can you imagine a world without flowers?
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your season at the Blotanical Gardens, and keep on admiring your neighbours gardens that is what the "Joy of Living" is all about.
Claude Monet was so right! I loved to visit his garden (though when I saw a film about him a few weeks ago I was not that charmed by him). But at the moment we have ahuge exhibition on Impressionism in Potsdam, the new Barberini Museum - and there are a lot of his wonderful paintings to see. Also a form of "Joy of Living"!
DeleteI looked in my granddaughter's drawer of old nail polish and suggested flowers to her.
ReplyDeleteWill it be a "sea of blossoms", Joanne? :-)
DeleteI am humbled to be mentioned in the same breath as such illustrious painters Britta. But I am inspired by this too. That particular morning I had a picture in my head of a poppy and a certain red and no time to waste. I wanted to get it on paper. I grabbed the nail varnish and, hey presto, it worked! Next time it will be blues, purples and pinks.xx
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to that, Rachel! I love spontaneous drawings (one often thinks about them long time before - than: NOW!) - and yours were so vivid and lovely!
DeleteYour post is poetic. I love it. I too wander around to look at the flowers growing in gardens. I don't have much luck with them myself.
ReplyDeleteThank you, dear Emma! I have luck with outdoor flowers - indoors my green thumb does not work quite so well...
DeleteDear Brigitta, I have just returned from my own tour of Maria Sibylla Merian's work in Google Images. What remarkable detail and colors --insects, arachnids, animals and plants in such intriguing arrangements and poses! Excellent post. I learn here.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Geo.! Aren't her drawings lovely? And she knows how to give them depth. About her life they did not say much at the exhibition - though I think it astonishing that a woman at that time was a real professional painter.
DeleteThank you for your kind comment - I try to combine information with entertainment - here information is a bit short, I fear.
That must have been the most wonderful show. I do love botanical drawings, particularly of flowers. I was amazed, also, while in England, to see meticulous embroidery of flowers. I've tried, in the deep past, to draw flowers, and there's nothing like one's own feeble efforts to heighten one's appreciqtion of what it takes to do it well.
ReplyDeleteA Corvette and a 2,02m man might not have been easily overlooked :-) Will ask Alina whether they visited the manor. A lot of English ladies drew flower (diaries), I was only surprised that Sibylla did it so early). Will look out to your garden post!
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