Flower Symbols in Christian Art
A violet, a rose—both represent properties or messages beyond their obvious meaning.
The violet and the rose are revered for their beauty and their spiritual significance.
During the Early Renaissance most art depicted religious themes. Flowers are included in Medieval and Renaissance paintings not only because they are pretty and decorative but because they are imbued with a symbolic language that underscores the Christian meaning of the depicted event. The flowers used in the paintings were generally-understood symbols or attributes of the saint, holy figure, or event depicted in the painting. The meanings may be lost to the average art viewer today, but gaining an understanding of the symbolism will enhance appreciation of the paintings.
Flowers have been imbued with symbolic meanings since ancient times. Many flowers used in Christian and Early Renaissance paintings borrowed their symbolism from mythology, and often floral attributes can be linked to mythological gods and goddesses. For instance, grape leaves are associated with Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry. Bacchus is explained by an elaborate myth: he was born from Zeus’ thigh, raised by nymphs, protected by the earth goddess Rhea, and trained in the uses of wine by the satyrs. The myth gave rise in the 7th century B.C. to the Dionysian cult and to the Bacchanalian rites that use wine, wild music and dance to achieve ecstasy. Such ancient meanings attempted to explain the mysteries of nature, the delicacy and beauty of a flower, or the strength of a tree.
In Christian art, what do the violet and the rose symbolize?
1. Violet
Because of the modest or humble manner in which it grows close to the ground and its blooms peek out from under its leaves, the violet symbolizes humility, even timidity. The Ancients' name for violets was “Iona”; they believed that Zeus, the king of the gods, originated violets in the meadows where Io used to wander. Zeus had fallen in love with the lovely nymph, Io, and changed her into a white heifer to protect her from his wife’s wrath. Zeus gave Io pastures in which to graze. The Athenians revered the violet, decorated their houses with it, and wore crowns of violets at their feasts and on festive occasions.
To the ancient Romans, violets were the symbol of mourning and of affection for the dead. They decorated tombs with wreaths of violets on the Festival of the Dead, or “Feralia,” in February and at the "Violaria," or the Festival of Violets, at the end of March. These ceremonies guaranteed the peace of the deceased. In the Middle Ages, violets were the symbol of faithfulness in love. The tiny purple and white flowers were made into crowns for winners of poetry contests during this era of courtly love.
Later, in the 17th century, Paris street vendors sold bunches of violets that they picked in the forests outside the city. In the 1750s horticulturists had the idea of cultivating violets closer to Paris. Then in the 19th century violets were very popular in private gardens and new varieties were introduced.
In Christian art, the violet symbolizes the Virgin Mary’s humility. One ancient tale states that violets were in fact white until Mary was filled with anguish from watching her son, Christ, suffer upon the Cross. At this moment all the white violets turned purple to echo her mourning. Perhaps this is a reason why purple remains a color associated with mourning. In Renaissance paintings, Mary, while holding the baby Jesus, is often depicted with violets to symbolize her humility or perhaps as a premonition of Jesus’ death, as in this early painting “Madonna Benois," or "Madonna and Child with Flowers” (c. 1475-1478) by Leonardo da Vinci. And the viewer can make out tiny violets in the foreground of this painting by Sienese artist Giovanni Paolo aptly named “Madonna of Humility” (1435).
2. Rose
The rose has always been valued for its beauty and fragrance and has its own history of symbolism and meaning. This exceptional flower may have originated in the Orient, as it is often featured in Persian poetry. The ancient Romans identified the rose and its natural beauty with Venus, their goddess of sensual love. In Greek mythology, their goddess of love, Aphrodite, gave the rose its name, but their goddess of flowers, Chloris, created it. One day in the forest, Chloris found the lifeless body of a beautiful nymph. Chloris turned her into a flower. Aphrodite offered beauty to the flower; Dionysus, the god of wine, gave her a sweet scent; and Zephyr, the West Wind, blew away all the clouds so Apollo, the sun god, could shine on this rose and make it bloom.
In the Middle Ages the rose came to symbolize the love of a beautiful and desired woman, as exemplified in the popular French allegorical poem of chivalric love, “Le Roman de la Rose” [The Story of the Rose]. The author’s declared intention was to expound the “whole art of love.” The poem was depicted in numerous illuminated manuscripts for several hundred years.
In the 12th century the Church introduced the rose into its ceremonies. For example, at Whitsun, formerly known in France as “Rose Easter,” processions were showered with rose petals. Christians adopted the red rose as a symbol of the blood of the Christian martyrs. The white rose came to be associated with purity, specifically the virginity and innocence of the Virgin Mary. Popular literature claims that before the rose became a flower of the earth, it grew in Paradise without thorns. The thorns came after Adam and Eve were banished from Eden to remind humans of their sins and their fall from grace. The rose’s fragrance and beauty remain, supposedly to remind humans of the splendor they lost. In reference to this legend the Virgin Mary is called a “rose without thorns” because she was free from original sin. In 1440, German painter Stefan Lochner beautifully depicted Mary among a bower of rose bushes in “Madonna of the Rose Bush.“ And in 1470 Italian master Alessandro Botticelli also portrayed Mary with roses in “Madonna of the Rosegarden.”
The cultivation of roses experienced an explosion in Europe in the 1800s with the introduction of a handful of roses from China. They were perpetual bloomers, making them of great interest to the European gardeners because they no longer had to wait once a year for their roses to bloom. There are currently thousands of varieties of roses being continually enhanced for excellence in bloom shape, profusion of petals, improved fragrance, exciting shades of color, and even for lack of thorns. Certainly today in Western traditions the rose is a symbol of passion, desire, beauty, and physical perfection and is typically given in bouquets as a gesture of romance.
Source:
Dumas, Anne. Book of Plants and Symbols. London: Hachette, 2000.
