Yesterday I was talking about the negative symbolism of flowers, and how they could be used to depict the absence of female sexuality. Today I'd like to look at the other side of the coin: positive symbolism, or using flowers to demonstrate the presence of female sexuality.
We need only to look at the English language for a rudimentary understanding of this kind of symbolism. The definitions/etymology of several words show our culture's strong connections between flowers and female sexuality/female sexual organs. The first dictionary definition of deflower is "deprive (a woman) of her virginity." Old terms from menstruation include "being sick of her flowers" (Leviticus 15:33, King James Version); Game of Thrones uses the same terminology ("flowering") in its books/television show. The verb "to bloom" may have the same roots as "to blow," which we see in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream... and obviously "to blow" has sexual connotations even today. (In Shakespeare's time, derivatives of "to blow": blowze, blowzy, blousy, meant a whore, a woman who was "overblown," a woman who had "bloomed" too much.) For centuries, female sexual/reproductive maturity has been associated with flowers.
In Renaissance Italy, this positive symbolism was often used in the depictions of scenes from Greek/Roman Mythology, as we see in Botticelli's painting Primavera. The two figures on the far right are the Zephyr, the Greek god of the west wind, and the Roman goddess Flora, naked and garlanded with flowers. In Ancient Rome, Floralia, or "floral games", were annually celebrated in the honor of the goddess Flora. It was basically an orgy festival, and Flora was basically a deified prostitute.
Positive symbolism like this was also popular in the early twentieth century, thanks in large part to Freudian theory. Hutchins Hapgood, a journalist and occasional member of photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s circle of artists and friends, reflected upon the age’s preoccupation with Freudian interpretations as follows: “Psychoanalysis has been overdone to such an extent that nobody could say anything about a dream, no matter how colorless it was, without his friends’ winking at one another and wonder how he could have been so indiscreet.”
Georgia O'Keeffe (painter and Alfred Stieglitz's wife) was one of the artists during this time period whose works were consistently interpreted in such a way. As I say in my thesis, "her close-up paintings of floral forms from the 1910s-1930s have been almost exclusively read as sexual metaphors, despite her continuous denial of such an intent." She once threatened to quit painting if Freudian interpretations of her work continued to be made. (She didn't follow through on her threat.)
Mexican painter Frida Kahlo also used sexual flower symbolism in her work - though she did so consciously and intentionally. Kahlo had injuries from a horrific bus accident that caused her complications with attempted pregnancies; she often alluded to the emotional and physical pain those injuries caused her in the self-portraits she painted. She was married to Diego Rivera, the Mexican muralist famous for his Detroit Industry paintings (shout out to Michigan!), and worried that she was at fault for Diego's infidelity because she was unable to bear him a child. In "The Flower of Life," she uses a mandrake both for its visual similarity to female sexual anatomy and for its long reputation as an infertility cure. One critic wrote: "Here, Kahlo presents a woman's genitals, available to gratify a man's pleasure but unable to experience pleasure or conceive."
During the Feminist movement of the 1970s, we again see a lot of flowers being used as positive symbolism for female sexuality. British feminist scholars like Griselda Pollock argued strenuously for "replacing realism with representational strategies… on the grounds that the female body when directly imaged is too easily co-opted for male viewing pleasure."
In 1974, Feminist artist Judy Chicago began her series of painted porcelain miniature, which included "Cunt as Temple, Tomb, Cave or Flower." According to Chicago, the porcelain miniatures transform the female sexual organs into "every possible thing the vagina [can] become… the vagina as temple, tomb, cave, or flower, [or] the Butterfly Vagina which gets to be an active vaginal form." Chicago criticized the passivity of O'Keeffe's vaginal forms, calling them a form of imprisonment. Chicago depicted female sexuality as more dynamic, more active - often more like a butterfly than a static flower.
As I was doing my research into these artists for my thesis paper (which is available for free on EMU's website if you'd like to read more about these and other artists), I found the examples of positive symbolism much more interesting than I did the examples of negative symbolism - because, as I've stated before, I wanted to feel more comfortable with myself and my sexuality. I was envious of the Feminist art scene in the 1970s, the community those women had with each other, the support, their ability to celebrate their sexuality and their femaleness in the ways they wanted to. Negative symbolism made sense to me - flowers as feminine, domestic decoration, flowers as symbols of purity and chastity and innocence and docile female beauty. It was the positive symbolism that was new to me, something I hadn't thought of before, something I wanted to emulate - but wasn't sure if I felt entirely comfortable doing so.
That's sort of where I'm still at now, five years later. I want to be confident and boisterous and run around unafraid - in many areas of my life - but that's simply not who I am. I'm an introvert. I'm cautious. Even when I hold a firm opinion about something, I am not likely to shout it. Instead, I hold it close to me and try to meaningfully radiate it out from my heart. I try to be confident enough that I am willing to let my opinions be heard - but I still require people to seek them out. I have a blog, for god's sake. Not a TV show. I'm not standing on a street corner, or behind a pulpit. To find me, you have to search for me, stumble upon me. I'm trying to put myself out there more - trying to market myself, trying to get people to look at my art, and buy my art - but it's work, not something that comes naturally to me.
When I paint or draw a flower, I think of both negative and positive symbolism. I want to celebrate my sexuality and be comfortable in my skin. But I also want to be defined by more than my sexuality, my womanhood. I want my art to reflect my personality - my shyness, my interest in the aesthetically pleasing. A lot of my work seems purely decorative - it's a colored pencil drawing of a flower, or a watercolor of a flower with some curly, feminine patterns around it. And I do intend it to be pretty. But I also don't want people to think it's "just kitsch art", or that I just make what I think others will like, or that I don't put any thought into it. I put a fucking lot of thought into it. It's just subtle - because I'm kind of subtle.
This painting, for instance - I wanted to use the color combination pink and green, I wanted to focus on the part of a flower that is not considered conventionally pretty, I wanted to make the rose look a little abstract (by emphasizing lines and shadows, by focusing on the curves of the petals) so that it also sort of resembled a vulva, I wanted to acknowledge the beauty of female sexuality (positive symbolism), I wanted to demonstrate how my own confidence often hides a bit in the shadows (negative symbolism), and I wanted to create a beautiful, dynamic painting.
Do you have to know that I was thinking of flowers as a symbol for female sexuality to appreciate my painting? No. But it does add another level to it, if one is so inclined to listen to its whispers.
We need only to look at the English language for a rudimentary understanding of this kind of symbolism. The definitions/etymology of several words show our culture's strong connections between flowers and female sexuality/female sexual organs. The first dictionary definition of deflower is "deprive (a woman) of her virginity." Old terms from menstruation include "being sick of her flowers" (Leviticus 15:33, King James Version); Game of Thrones uses the same terminology ("flowering") in its books/television show. The verb "to bloom" may have the same roots as "to blow," which we see in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream... and obviously "to blow" has sexual connotations even today. (In Shakespeare's time, derivatives of "to blow": blowze, blowzy, blousy, meant a whore, a woman who was "overblown," a woman who had "bloomed" too much.) For centuries, female sexual/reproductive maturity has been associated with flowers.
In Renaissance Italy, this positive symbolism was often used in the depictions of scenes from Greek/Roman Mythology, as we see in Botticelli's painting Primavera. The two figures on the far right are the Zephyr, the Greek god of the west wind, and the Roman goddess Flora, naked and garlanded with flowers. In Ancient Rome, Floralia, or "floral games", were annually celebrated in the honor of the goddess Flora. It was basically an orgy festival, and Flora was basically a deified prostitute.
 |
| Sandro Botticelli - Primavera (1477) |
Positive symbolism like this was also popular in the early twentieth century, thanks in large part to Freudian theory. Hutchins Hapgood, a journalist and occasional member of photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s circle of artists and friends, reflected upon the age’s preoccupation with Freudian interpretations as follows: “Psychoanalysis has been overdone to such an extent that nobody could say anything about a dream, no matter how colorless it was, without his friends’ winking at one another and wonder how he could have been so indiscreet.”
Georgia O'Keeffe (painter and Alfred Stieglitz's wife) was one of the artists during this time period whose works were consistently interpreted in such a way. As I say in my thesis, "her close-up paintings of floral forms from the 1910s-1930s have been almost exclusively read as sexual metaphors, despite her continuous denial of such an intent." She once threatened to quit painting if Freudian interpretations of her work continued to be made. (She didn't follow through on her threat.)
 |
| Georgia O'Keeffe - "Flower Abstraction" 1924 picture from the Whitney Museum of Art |
Mexican painter Frida Kahlo also used sexual flower symbolism in her work - though she did so consciously and intentionally. Kahlo had injuries from a horrific bus accident that caused her complications with attempted pregnancies; she often alluded to the emotional and physical pain those injuries caused her in the self-portraits she painted. She was married to Diego Rivera, the Mexican muralist famous for his Detroit Industry paintings (shout out to Michigan!), and worried that she was at fault for Diego's infidelity because she was unable to bear him a child. In "The Flower of Life," she uses a mandrake both for its visual similarity to female sexual anatomy and for its long reputation as an infertility cure. One critic wrote: "Here, Kahlo presents a woman's genitals, available to gratify a man's pleasure but unable to experience pleasure or conceive."
 |
| Frida Kahlo - "The Flower of Life" 1943 (fridakahlo.org) |
During the Feminist movement of the 1970s, we again see a lot of flowers being used as positive symbolism for female sexuality. British feminist scholars like Griselda Pollock argued strenuously for "replacing realism with representational strategies… on the grounds that the female body when directly imaged is too easily co-opted for male viewing pleasure."
In 1974, Feminist artist Judy Chicago began her series of painted porcelain miniature, which included "Cunt as Temple, Tomb, Cave or Flower." According to Chicago, the porcelain miniatures transform the female sexual organs into "every possible thing the vagina [can] become… the vagina as temple, tomb, cave, or flower, [or] the Butterfly Vagina which gets to be an active vaginal form." Chicago criticized the passivity of O'Keeffe's vaginal forms, calling them a form of imprisonment. Chicago depicted female sexuality as more dynamic, more active - often more like a butterfly than a static flower.
 |
| (image from feministart.blogspot.com) |
As I was doing my research into these artists for my thesis paper (which is available for free on EMU's website if you'd like to read more about these and other artists), I found the examples of positive symbolism much more interesting than I did the examples of negative symbolism - because, as I've stated before, I wanted to feel more comfortable with myself and my sexuality. I was envious of the Feminist art scene in the 1970s, the community those women had with each other, the support, their ability to celebrate their sexuality and their femaleness in the ways they wanted to. Negative symbolism made sense to me - flowers as feminine, domestic decoration, flowers as symbols of purity and chastity and innocence and docile female beauty. It was the positive symbolism that was new to me, something I hadn't thought of before, something I wanted to emulate - but wasn't sure if I felt entirely comfortable doing so.
That's sort of where I'm still at now, five years later. I want to be confident and boisterous and run around unafraid - in many areas of my life - but that's simply not who I am. I'm an introvert. I'm cautious. Even when I hold a firm opinion about something, I am not likely to shout it. Instead, I hold it close to me and try to meaningfully radiate it out from my heart. I try to be confident enough that I am willing to let my opinions be heard - but I still require people to seek them out. I have a blog, for god's sake. Not a TV show. I'm not standing on a street corner, or behind a pulpit. To find me, you have to search for me, stumble upon me. I'm trying to put myself out there more - trying to market myself, trying to get people to look at my art, and buy my art - but it's work, not something that comes naturally to me.
When I paint or draw a flower, I think of both negative and positive symbolism. I want to celebrate my sexuality and be comfortable in my skin. But I also want to be defined by more than my sexuality, my womanhood. I want my art to reflect my personality - my shyness, my interest in the aesthetically pleasing. A lot of my work seems purely decorative - it's a colored pencil drawing of a flower, or a watercolor of a flower with some curly, feminine patterns around it. And I do intend it to be pretty. But I also don't want people to think it's "just kitsch art", or that I just make what I think others will like, or that I don't put any thought into it. I put a fucking lot of thought into it. It's just subtle - because I'm kind of subtle.
 |
| "Rose Stems" by Andrea Arbit - Watercolor on paper, 15"x22" |
This painting, for instance - I wanted to use the color combination pink and green, I wanted to focus on the part of a flower that is not considered conventionally pretty, I wanted to make the rose look a little abstract (by emphasizing lines and shadows, by focusing on the curves of the petals) so that it also sort of resembled a vulva, I wanted to acknowledge the beauty of female sexuality (positive symbolism), I wanted to demonstrate how my own confidence often hides a bit in the shadows (negative symbolism), and I wanted to create a beautiful, dynamic painting.
Do you have to know that I was thinking of flowers as a symbol for female sexuality to appreciate my painting? No. But it does add another level to it, if one is so inclined to listen to its whispers.
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