Playlist
This are different songs that I listening to this whole week to really enter the world of the flowers. I decided to an playlist of all the song where the lyrics corresponded to my them of the human flower and of the metamorphose :
Bouquet de pleurs - Foé : This song speaks about he suffering of a young women after someone breaking her heart. But instead of crying normal tears, the singers tells us that er tears are transforming themselves in flowers.
Ta peau, ta peau, ta peau
Verte par la rengaine
Ses épines piquent et t'étrennent
Et sentent le rouge et la peine
Les fleurs, les fleurs, les fleurs
Du bouquet de tes pleurs
Laissent tomber leurs pétales
Tueurs de fleurs - La femme : is a French song about a killer of flowers, where the women is described as an flower, who suffers from her owner and is mistreated.
Tu oses dire que tu l'aimes
Mais tu lui arraches ses pétales
Alors dis moi qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?
Tu l'aimais pourtant parce qu'elle était séduisante
Et luisante au parfum d'Orient.
Another music is The waltz of the flowers (1892), a piece of orchestral music from the second act of The Nutcracker, a ballet composed by Tchaikovsky.. A story is also told that Tchaikovsky's sister had died shortly before he began composition of the ballet and that his sister's death influenced him to compose a melancholy, descending scale melody for the adagio of the Grand Pas de Deux.
Flowers - sweet female attitude : I chose this song because it made me notice how powerful a bouquet of flowers can be how happy it could make a person.
And I'll never ever let you go
I'll bring you flowers in the pouring rain
Did you know living without you is driving me insane
I'll bring you flowers, I'll make your day
The tears you cry, I'll dry them all, away
Music video inspired by Ophelia is “Where the Wild Roses Grow” by Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave:
On the last day I took her where the wild roses grow
And she lay on the bank, the wind light as a thief
As I kissed her goodbye, I said, "All beauty must die"
And lent down and planted a rose between her teeth
" Desert rose " - Sting :
Each of her veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this
Natural Fashion Tribal Decoration from Africa
John Everett Millais represented in this painting the play Hamlet when Ophelia, driven mad by Hamlet’s murder of her father, drowns herself .Most of the flowers in Ophelia are included either because they are mentioned in the play, or for their symbolic value. Millais saw these flowers growing wild by the river in Ewell. Because he painted the river scene over a period of five months, flowers that bloom at different times of the year appear next to each other.
Ophelia: “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.”
Laertes: “A document in madness,–thought and remembrance fitted.”
Ophelia: “There’s fennel for you, and columbines:–there’s rue for you; and here’s some for me:–we may call it herb-grace o’Sundays:–O you must wear your rue with a difference.–There’s a daisy:–I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died:–they say he made a good end. ” [Sings] “For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy–“
In addition to the flowers mentioned in Hamlet, Millais added other flowers with symbolic meaning. Forget-me-nots are visible on the bank. A red poppy floats near Ophelia’s hand, a symbol of sleep and death. Despite her saying that there were no violets, we can see she wears a necklace of them. Fritillary, symbols of sorrow, also appear.
When I first saw this painting , it was when I was 8 and I remember starting crying for no reasons. I always admired how beautiful death looks in this painting and how peaceful and free ophelia looked floating in this bed of flowers. while uploading this pictures It made also think of the music video of Kylie Minogue '' Where the wild roses grow '' and also a scene from Star Wars of the death of played by Natalie Portman .
The myth of Dapne and apollo
Greek Mythology states that Apollo( the god of beauty, sun and music) had been mocking the God of Love, Eros (also known as Cupid). In retaliation, Eros fired two arrows: a gold arrow that struck Apollo and made him fall in love with Daphne, a Naiad Nymph daughter of a river god. and a lead arrow that made Daphne hate Apollo. Under the spell of the arrow, Apollo continued to follow Daphne, but she continued to reject him. Apollo told Daphne that he would love her forever.
Daphne turned to the river god, Peneus, and pleaded for him to free her from Apollo. In response, Peneus use metamorphosis to turn Daphne into a laurel tree. Apollo used his powers of eternal youth and immortality to make Daphne’s laurel leaves evergreen. It’s believed that Daphne has to sacrifice her body and turn into a tree as this was the only way she could avoid Apollo’s sexual advances.
Francesco Colonna describes the transformation of seven nymphs into trees in the presence of the god Jupiter.
This is what Colonna says about the seven nymphs: They then transformed themselves into green trees of transparent emerald, covered with bright blue flowers, which bowed devoutly to the high god. The last one was entirely turned to a tree, her feet becoming roots; the next, all but her feet; the third, all but the part from the waist to the arms; and so on, successively. But the tops of the virginal heads showed that the metamorphosis would happen to each in turn. (Colonna 1999: 174)
This tough that this story corresponded to the previous myth of Daphne transforming herself into an tree, but here the nymph are not entirely transforming into an tree, but deciding to do it partly. what I particularly like about both of these myths is that idea of preferring to to become an plant then keeping the human body.
The myth of narcissus
Narcissistic personality disorder is named for the Greek myth of Narcissus, of which there are several versions. In Ovid’s version, which is the most commonly related, the nymph Echo falls in love with Narcissus, a youth of extraordinary beauty. As a child, Narcissus had been prophesized by Teiresias, the blind prophet of Thebes, to ‘live to a ripe old age, as long as he never knows himself’.
One day, Echo followed the grown up Narcissus through the woods as he went about hunting for stags. She longed to speak to him but dared not utter the first word. Overhearing her footsteps, the youth cried out, ‘Who’s there?’ to which she responded, ‘Who’s there?’ When at last she revealed herself, she rushed out to embrace Narcissus, but he scorned her and pushed her away. Echo spent the rest of her life pining for Narcissus, and slowly withered away until there was nothing left of her but her voice.
Some time after his encounter with Echo, Narcissus went to quench his thirst at a pool of water. Seeing his own image in the water, he fell in love with it. But each time he bent down to kiss it, it seemed to disappear. Narcissus grew ever more thirsty, but would not leave or disturb the pool of water for fear of losing sight of his reflection. In the end, he died of thirst, and there, on that very spot, appeared the narcissus flower, with its bright face and bowed neck.
why do we put flowers on death people ?
it interesting the fact that in our culture, we feel the need to dispose flowers on the graves in the cemetery's. As the same time it can be a way of keeping the memory of a person soul's by changing regularly her flowers. They represents a certain source of life, but also remind how precious, fragile, and ephemeral it can be. A flower's life doesn't last, and that is way it is so special.
These drawings of Franz Bauer, an Australian artist of natural history illustration, made me think of the female reproductive system, from its colors but also from its shape and structure. The artist is know for his scientifically accurate painted images of dissected and magnified plants parts, especially the microscopic features of pollen ( which is the attributes ute that permits flowers to reproduce themselves, with the help of insects most often bees, that go from flower to flower and spreed the pollen) and his personal fascination , the floral mechanismus. The female inner private part can sometime be seen as "gross" from the society or even "dirty", mostly due to our period's. So it would be interesting to represent it as a flower and ad to it a very soft and gentle perfume. But then also start to make people start
The female appears to be thrusting upwards towards the sexual organs of a male figure, as if some oral gratification is about to occur. His head and upper torso can not be seen, and his knees appear newly scratched and bleeding.
A singular lily can be seen at the female's breasts, adding to the phallic imagery.
For all the obvious sexual expression in the Great Masturbator, Dali had a complicated association with sexuality, masturbation and genitalia, and this painting explores much of this.