Buy the oil painting Flowers in the JAG gallery

People started to draw flowers back in the era of construction of Egyptian pyramids. The image of lotos was found on the walls of these ancient monuments. Ancient Egyptians regarded lotos as a sacred flower containing mysterious energy. That is why the walls of ancient temples and pyramids have drawings depicting someone sniffing the scent of the flower.

But it was only in the XVII century in Holland that floral oil painting became an independent visual art. The art of painting reflected gardening and flower cultivation, Dutch people’s favorite occupation. Dutch paintings of that time showed blooming roses and tulips, fragile forget-me-nots and carnations, colorful mallows and daisies.

Beauty and rarity were in great demand among connoisseurs. Artists painted flowers blooming in different seasons, so the creation of artistic paintings often took months. Therefore, only very wealthy connoisseurs could afford to buy flower paintings.

Jan Bruegel the Elder, a Flemish artist of the late XVI - early XVII centuries, looked for inspiration and themes for his artworks in the royal greenhouses of Brussels. He painted flower artworks from the nature, and sometimes waited for several months till the plant he needed bloomed.

Jan Baptist van Fornenburgh is a Dutch artist of the first half of the seventeenth century. He often depicted withering flowers as an allegory of transience of life. Along with tulips, daffodils and roses in his paintings you can see insects, birds, and animals.

Another Dutch painter of that era, Jacob Wouters Vosmar also liked to depict butterflies, bees and dragonflies over bouquets of flowers.

Let us recall names of several more talented artists whose flower paintings became history: Jan van Huysum, Abraham Mignon, Adriaen Coorte. Each of them depicted flowers in their individual manner making this art extremely popular.

In addition to Western Europe, flowers were eagerly depicted by artists in the Muslim East, where for religious reasons, making images of humans and animals was banned for a long time. A flower ornament became favorite part of murals in mosques.

In Chinese art, the genre of huā niǎo (Chinese flowers and birds) has been popular since the Middle Ages. Artists used these elements to render human mood in painting. Chinese art is characterized by picturesqueness and symbolism. In the artworks of Chinese artists, peonies emphasize nobility and wealth, lotus - spiritual purity; chrysanthemums - detachment; wild plum Meihua - inflexibility and spiritual perfection. And the combination of bamboo, pine and plum is a symbol of strong friendship.

You can always buy flower paintings on the Jose Art Gallery website.