Bouquets to tide us over

Here in New England, our spring is a bit slow in emerging this year, so here are several incredibly beautiful bouquet paintings from centuries past to help tide us over until the earth explodes with color. Look at the scrumptious colors and the details! One interesting fact about these sorts of flower paintings is that a tulip would never be in bloom at the same time as, say, a larkspur or a rose. Artistic license was at play, as the artist included flowers from spring, summer and autumn. The little insects that these artists included in these paintings are a delightful surprise—butterflies, dragonflies, snails, and ladybugs, to name a few. Can you spot them?

This 19th-century watercolor,

 by Antoine Jules Pelletier

Bouquet of flowers placed on a pedestal in stone, with a dragonfly

by Abraham Mignon

Flowers in a Vase

by Paulus Theodorus van Brussel, 1792

Still Life of Flowers, by Ambrosious Bosschaert, 1620s

Cornelis Van Spaendonck

Still Life of Flowers, by Ambrosious Bosschaert, 1620s

Here is one more—Contemporary painter Yana Movchan has embraced this style of floral still life painting quite successfully. Here, his Bouquet with Gladiolus has that old-world charm, right down to the little snail climbing up a leaf on the left side of the canvas. See it?

Bouquet with Gladiolus, Yana Movchan, 1980