Friday night I bought a bunch of irises. I cut their stems to varying lengths and arranged them in vases. When I went to bed, their indigo buds were still closed tight. Two flowers began to open on Saturday morning, and by Sunday evening, they were all open, at the peak of their beauty.
I wanted to remember them in that state, so I pulled out my oil pastels and drew. Flowers are fun to draw and paint,
because they have organic shapes, lines, and colors that man-made objects don’t. And unlike most animals or people, they’ll sit still for a couple hours as you draw them.
Floral paintings can come across as chintzy and sentimental, but I sympathize with any artist who wants to draw them. Because they are so vibrant and so vigorously alive, and because they last such a short time, flowers often urge me to grab my pencils, my pastels, or my paints so I can capture a bit of their beauty before it goes away.
As I drew, I recalled this conversation from Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (which, I repeat, you really need to read):
“I still keep pictures in my mind of my governess on some May morning, carrying my hoop and stick, and the morning sun behind her, and all the tulips bobbing in the breeze. But I have forgotten the name of my governess and of the tulips too.”
“I don’t think tulips have names,” said Coraline. “They’re just tulips.”
“Perhaps,” said the voice, sadly. “But I have always thought that these tulips must have had names. They were red, and orange and red, and red and orange and yellow, like embers in the nursery fire of a winter’s evening. I remember them.”
The “voice” belongs to a child’s ghost recalling one of his few lingering memories. The tulips seem emblematic of his entire life: they are vibrant, sweet, and ephemeral. Old Testament psalmists, Dutch Renaissance painters, and modern folk musicians have all used flowers as metaphors for life’s transitory nature. I think they’re onto something. Flowers inspire me to enjoy life’s sweetness, they urge me to be creative and to celebrate beauty, because beauty, however briefly lived, is important.
It is good to remember that life is short. But it is also good to remember that we look forward to something more than death. Flowers remind us of resurrection too. Take, for instance, this passage from 1 Corinthians. And read this poem by Louise Gluck, who, it seems, is also inspired by irises.
Van Gogh’s irises
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