The weather has made it possible, nay, required, to be out and about lot. Last week I went on several walks, one of which was meant to visit the birds but I encountered an explosion of wildflowers instead.

Nothing particularly special – everything particularly beautiful in its unassuming presence.

Which had me thinking again about how artists portray flowers, from the early botanical sketches that served as tools for learning about the plants of the world and their function,

to the symbolism contained in medieval paintings or Victorian floriography, speculations about the secret meaning of flowers.

You can see it in the pre-raphaelites painters: Lawrence Alma-Tadema, for example, rendered the tragic tale of Emperor Heliogabalus watching his guests suffocate under a shower of rose petals (in the old story they happened to be violets – death by flower, who knew….). The artist chose the species specifically for its association with corruption and death, but the subject, I wager, for the ability to paint something big….

Lawrence Alma-Tadema The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888)

It seems to be never enough to just depict a simple flower as is, in an attempt to convey the sense of joy it inspires, hanging out in the meadows, at the forest borders, in modern times as well.

Photographers choose particular flowers that lend themselves to an emphasis of form, stark contrast, like Imogen Cunningham’s calla lilies or magnolia blossoms, abstracting an essence. If they do photograph less defined flora, they often apply post processing filters to give the image a mysterious hue.

Imogen Cunningham Two calla lilies (1920)

Edward Weston Purple leaved flower

20th/21st century painters go big – man, everyone always goes big these days, abstracting the plants or unifying them to the point of un-recognizability.

Real daisy meadow…

Takashi Murakami Field of Smiling Flowers, 2010

And then there are the installations using actual floral parts, either collected over time, or grown into absurd topiaries…. again, nothing won’t do unless humongous. (I was introduced to this work by an article asking: why did Jeff Koons make a giant puppy? I, too, wonder about that…)

Jeff Koons Giant Puppy (1992 to present )

Even one of my favorite contemporary artists focussed on nature joins the trend (I will write about him and his work one of these days in full).

herman de vries 108 pound rosa damascena at the 2015 Biennale Dutch Pavilion

Don’t get me wrong – there is a meaningful place for large works, no doubt. An important place. But the tendency to use subjects that are small and make them big in either size or accumulation seems to imply that that is the locus of awe – when really it should be felt when you encounter the miniature version indefatigably sprucing up the landscape under natural, often adverse conditions.

I fear that the preoccupation with spectacle really leads to a withering of our ability to detect, appreciate and protect what is small. Just like wildflowers being classified as “weeds” had to make room for more showy varieties, or blossoming meadows were replaced by spectacular lawns, truthful depictions of something unassuming gains no attention when placed next to artificial elevation of a subject.

Give me a tiny aster anytime…. and give me depictions in a format that I can take home, hang on the wall, enjoy every day as a reminder of the reality of beauty in the world, and my role as its steward.

Here is a sampling of what I saw:

Music today echoing some happiness.