The works are arranged chronologically starting with Henri Rousseau and ending with contemporary works by Chris Ofili and Lubaina Himid<\/a>. <\/p>\n Rousseau\u2019s Bouquet of Flowers<\/a> (1910) is an array of real and imagined blooms with almost jungle-like depth. Rather than travelling abroad for inspiration, Rousseau relied on the Jardin des Plantes in Paris for the \u201cexotic\u201d<\/a> plants taken from French colonies for his paintings.<\/p>\n In contrast Himid offers the viewer a collection of blooms from peonies to palm leaves, arranged as a repeating pattern, redolent of east African Kanga<\/a> cloth designs. <\/p>\n The reference to the cloth subtly recalls the colonial slave trade<\/a> but also celebrates the richness<\/a> and diversity brought by migration. The title, These Are for You \u2013 that phrase often used by visitors giving a bunch of flowers on arrival \u2013 can then be understood as a wry comment.<\/p>\n Juxtaposed with these complex global and historical themes are some more personal, intimate scenes. Vases of flowers are often depicted in interior domestic spaces. Relationships are shown or hinted at sometimes with an undercurrent of sorrow. Flowers, often harvested to give joy, to congratulate and decorate, once picked are doomed to wilt and decay.<\/p>\n Eric Ravilious\u2019s Ironbridge Interior<\/a> (1941) creates an atmosphere of calm, but also melancholy. The flowers and grasses in a jug are fresh from the hedgerow. On the wall of the sun-lit room is another painting loosely pinned of a different vase with more blousy but drooping blooms, which hints at the inevitable passing of time. This mise-en-abyme<\/em> (picture within a picture), creates a hollow feeling of unease. <\/p>\n The painting is made more poignant in the knowledge that Ravilious, a war artist<\/a> at the time, died a year later in an air crash. Nearby hangs a small painting by Tirzah Garwood, Ravilious\u2019s wife. Springtime of Flight<\/a> completed only nine years later, shortly before her death from cancer, depicts an intricately painted biplane flying above a floral landscape. <\/p>\n It movingly shows her love for Ravilious and her love of life<\/a> when faced with her own mortality. It is an imaginary world that she perhaps took comfort and refuge in.<\/p>\n There are many more stories to be found and pieced together in this exhibition. Some, like Jennifer Packer\u2019s bloody Chrysanthemums (2015) return to a political subtext. This is one of the many floral paintings which Packer describes as \u201cvessels of personal grief\u201d<\/a>. They pay tribute to people who have lost their lives through police brutality. <\/p>\n Packer\u2019s work connects with Himid\u2019s concerns. Their paintings are accompanied by Cassi Namoda\u2019s more joyous work \u2013 a celebration of her homeland Mozambique and the birth of her son, Arafah Gaza\u2019s Arrival<\/a> (2025). <\/p>\n Others like Gluck\u2019s Convolvulus<\/a> (1940) reveal the sensual<\/a> sometimes erotic inferences of flowers. Although a common weed, Gluck<\/a> associated these flowers with their former lover the florist Constance Spry<\/a>. In Gluck\u2019s painting convolvulus<\/a> or bindweed is made ornate and beautiful, imbued with sexual tension of winding limbs and lust.<\/p>\n Of course, throughout the exhibition lies the changing landscape of artistic tastes and styles which mirror society and the times in which they were made. Charles Rennie Mackintosh\u2019s precise almost architectural rendering of Fritillaria<\/a> (1915), points to art nouveau as well as oncoming modernism. Whereas Rory McEwan\u2019s enlarged minimally presented and closely observed Tulip (Helen Josephine)<\/a> from 1975 blends minimal hyperrealism<\/a> with botanical illustration. <\/p>\n At the other extreme hangs Howard Hodgkin\u2019s small abstract Red Flowers<\/a> (2011) painted with emotion-laden gestures in memory of his father.<\/p>\n Each artist has chosen their particular flowers to paint, exerting control over nature showing a particular fascination, atmosphere, idea that they want to impart though this choice. Every visitor can handpick and arrange their own narrative journey through this show, with the clear yet eclectic, aesthetic choices of the permanent collection as a subtle background influence.<\/p>\n
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