Language of flowers
Joseph Hammer-Purgstall's Dictionnaire du language des fleurs (1809) appears to be the first published list associating flowers with symbolic definitions, while the first dictionary of floriography appears in 1819 when Louise Cortambert, writing under pen name Madame Charlotte de la Tour, wrote Le langage des Fleurs.
Gifts of blooms, plants, and specific floral arrangements were used to send a coded message to the recipient, allowing the sender to express feelings of romance and courtship which could not be spoken aloud in Victorian society.
[5][6] Armed with floral dictionaries, Victorians often exchanged small "talking bouquets" or "word poesy,” called nosegays or tussie-mussies, which could be worn or carried as a fashion accessory.
These accessories were originally worn to mask the scent of the streets and body odor, and were often composed of fragrant herbs and flowers such as lavender, lemon balm, and roses.
[16] In Hamlet, Ophelia mentions the symbolic meanings of flowers and herbs as she hands them to other characters in Act 4, Scene 5: pansies, rosemary, fennel, lilies, columbine, rue and daisy.
When the protagonist, Elisa, finds her beloved chrysanthemums tossed on the ground, her hobby and womanhood have been ruined; this suffices the themes of lost appreciation and femininity in Steinbeck's work.
[20] Hajime Isayama frequently used various types of flowers for symbolism and foreshadowing in his manga series Attack on Titan, which also includes Hanakotoba (花言葉), the Japanese form of floriography.
The Victorian Pre-Raphaelites, a group of 19th-century painters and poets who aimed to revive the purer art of the late medieval period, captured classic notions of beauty romantically.
John Everett Millais, a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, used oils to create pieces filled with naturalistic elements and rich in floriography.
His painting Ophelia (1852) depicts Shakespeare's drowned stargazer floating amid the flowers she describes in Act IV, Scene V of Hamlet.
The Edwardian artist John Singer Sargent spent much time painting outdoors in the English countryside, frequently utilizing floral symbolism.
Contemporary artist Whitney Lynn created a site-specific project for San Diego International Airport[23] employing floriography, utilizing flowers' ability to communicate messages that otherwise would be restricted or difficult to speak aloud.
[24] Lynn previously created a work, Memorial Bouquet,[25] utilizing floral symbolism for the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery.
Based on Dutch Golden Age still-life painting, the flowers in the arrangement represent countries that have been sites of US military operations and conflicts.
