Tag: Albrech Durer

Roses are red, Violets are…blue?

I really enjoyed writing about the origins of flower names in a previous blog, “A Rose by any Other Name“, and since there are so many flowers with such pretty names I thought I would do one more.

Albrecht Dürer, Violet Boquet (1502) & Edouard Manet, Boquet of Violets (1872)

Violets – We’ve all heard the Valentine rhyme with roses and violets, but violets aren’t really blue – they are violet!! Interestingly, the color came after the flower in this case – the flower is named after the Latin viola or a little violin.  The valentine poem we are all so familiar was first found in Gammer Gurton’s Garland which was a 1784 collection of nursey rhymes:

The rose is red, the violet's blue
The honey's sweet, and so are you
Ilya Mashkov, Still Life with Camellia (1913)

Camellia  – When Carl Linnaeus standardized plant names in 1753, he named these flowers after Father Georg Joseph Kamel (1161–1706), a Jesuit missionary and naturalist. Father Kamel was a missionary to the Philippines where he became a plant specialist of the Philippine islands. Camellias are native to Japan and China, where they are known to exist since 2737 BCE. The flower is called Tsubaki in Japanese and symbolizes the divine.

Peony – this beautiful flower symbolizing romance and prosperity is named after Paeon who in Greek mythology was the physician to the Greek Gods. Paeon was a student of Asclepius, the God of medicine and healing. Asclepius was jealous of Paeon and threatened to kill him. Zeus turned Paeon into a flower to save him from Asclepius – and that’s how this flower got its name. Peonies are the national flower of China and are known as the king of flowers in China.

Pete Mondrian, Red Amaryllis with Blue Background (1907)

Amaryllis  – this flowers is named after a shepherdess in Latin poet Virgil’s work called the Eclogues which are a collection of 10 unconnected pastoral poems that he composed between 42 and 37 BCE. Amaryllis was in love with Alteo, and to get his attention she pierced her heart daily with a golden arrow for a month. The blood that dropped from her heart was red like the flower which came to be known as Amaryllis. Perhaps also because of the red color, the Amaryllis plays a starring role at Christmas time.

Happy Birthday Herr Dürer

Born on May 21, 1471, Albrecht Dürer was one of the finest – and certainly the most popular – German artist. He lived and painted at the same time as Michelangelo and Leonardo, and brought the Renaissance from Italy to Northern Europe. His art brilliantly embodied the theories of perspective and proportion, and his works show an amazing passion for realistic detail.

He was born in Nuremberg, Germany, and other than when he went to the Netherlands and then Italy for training, he lived there his entire life. He was a child prodigy and a versatile artist – his travels allowed him to combine the detailed realism of Netherlandish Renaissance Art with the beauty of Florentine Renaissance. He was a master at woodcut engravings and the prints he made from them were extremely popular. His skills in woodcut engraving and printmaking remain unsurpassed to this date. His vast body of work includes altarpieces and religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper engravings. The popularity of his prints and their lower cost made them bestsellers – making him the first bestselling artist in the world.

The monumental nature of his paintings, particularly his later self-portrait in which he bears an uncanny resemblance to Christ, and uses his initials significantly as AD 1500 (for the year of the painting) are all for the purpose of giving his profession the elevated stature that artists enjoyed in Italy, in contrast to the craftsman type stature they held in northern Europe. His exquisite self-portraits are breathtaking in every way – and show his journey from child prodigy to a great Renaissance artist.

So Happy 559th to this talented and versatile powerhouse of an artist.