The Art of the Flower

Whenever we visit an art gallery, one of my favourite pastimes is to check the floral content of the paintings. I love spotting familiar flowers at the foot of the Virgin, or examining the landscape for familiar trees – it is a way of engaging with the artist who must have lived amongst and enjoyed the same plants as I do. On our recent visit to Seville we visited the Museo de Bellas Artes where Spring was painted wearing a most extravagant headdress that included roses, narcissi, irises, dianthus, marigolds and tulips.

Equally charming was  the painting of paradise by Breugel the Younger where I spotted clover and marsh marigolds in the foreground, as well as cow parsley and possibly stitchwort.