Blue flower

A blue flower (German: Blaue Blume) was a central symbol of inspiration for the Romanticism movement, and remains an enduring motif in Western art today.

Romantic poetry invariably deals with longing; not a definite, formulated desire for some obtainable object, but a dim, mysterious aspiration, a trembling unrest, a vague sense of kinship with the infinite, and a consequent dissatisfaction with every form of happiness which the world has to offer.

"[3] Thomas Carlyle offered this, that the blue flower "being Poetry, the real object, passion and vocation of young Heinrich, which, through manifold adventures, exertions and sufferings, he is to seek and find.

Adelbert von Chamisso saw the core of Romanticism in the motif, and Goethe searched for the "Urpflanze" or "original plant" in Italy, which in some interpretations could refer to the blue flower.

E. T. A. Hoffmann used the Blue Flower as a symbol for the poetry of Novalis and the "holy miracle of nature" in his short tale "Nachricht von den neuesten Schicksalen des Hundes Berganza".

[7] In John le Carré's 1968 novel A Small Town in Germany, the character Bradfield says, "I used to think I was a Romantic, always looking for the blue flower" (Pan edition, p. 286 – chap.

In his fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, American author George R. R. Martin uses the blue flower as a reoccurring symbol to represent young women of the noble House Stark, often with hints to an illicit love affair.

In one instance, Prince Rhaegar Targaryen uses blue winter roses to crown the Lady Lyanna Stark as the "Queen of Love and Beauty" at the Tournament of Harrenhal, passing over his own wife, Princess Elia of Dorne.

[11] A display of blue Baptisia australis flowers is used as a symbol of private support for an annual night of extrajudicial killings that serves as the central plot device of 2013 motion picture The Purge.

[12] James and Ruth Bauer, husband and wife collaborative team, wrote an unconventional music theatre piece entitled The Blue Flower at the turn of the 21st century.

Speaking through liberally fictionalized versions of artists Max Beckmann, Franz Marc, and Hannah Höch as well as pivotal female scientific figure Marie Curie, the piece works with the romantic significance of the blue flower as it meditates on the brutal political and cultural turmoil of World War I, the short lived Weimar Republic, and Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the Nazi Party.