The Symbolism of Flowers (Part 1)

Did you know that all flowers have an associated symbolism? Maybe love, or courage, or compassion. A friend recently told me about the symbolism of agapanthus, and this piqued my interest.

Flowers play an important role in many countries across the world, and most countries have a national flower as a symbol. Flowers also played, and still play, an important role in literature and music. Shakespeare often referred to flowers in his plays: I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows out of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” It seems that he particularly liked violets as these flowers are mentioned in several of his other plays.

Have you ever thought about the meaning of a flower when giving it to someone on Valentine’s Day, or a birthday, at Easter or just to say thank you? John Lennon said, Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow. But also important, at least in the Victorian area, was how you presented the flower and the message that was delivered without any spoken words: flowers handed over with the right hand meant a “yes” answer, whereas flowers handed over with the left hand meant “no”.

One of my favorite flowers to paint is the red poppy, a flower deeply rooted as a symbol of remembrance and hope. Where does the association with remembrance come from? Much of the fighting during WWI took place in Western Europe, where the landscape became very barren with little growing there; the exception was the resilient little poppy that continued to grow and give colour in all this bleakness. It is said that the poppy was the inspiration of the well-known poem, In Flanders Field, written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. But the story doesn’t end here. The poem was an inspiration to Moina Michael, an American, to adopt the poppy as a symbol to honor those that have died in the war. Anna Guérin, living in the UK in the early 1920’s, heard about this and wanted to sell poppies in London when she met Earl Haig, the founder of the The Royal British Legion, who was so impressed with the idea, that he adopted the poppy as the symbol of The Royal British Legion[1].