15C-19C Mythical Goddess Flora - Symbol of Spring

Detail of Flora from Primavera by Botticelli, c. 1482

In Rome, her festival, the Floralia, was held between April 28 and May 3 and symbolized the renewal of the cycle of life, drinking, and flowers. The festival was first instituted in 240 B.C.E, and on the advice of the Sibylline books, she was also given a temple in 238 B.C.E. At the festival, with the men decked in flowers, and the women wearing normally forbidden gay costumes, five days of farces and mimes were enacted – ithyphallic, and including nudity when called for – followed by a sixth day of the hunting of goats and hares. On May 23 another (rose) festival was held in her honor.  Flora's Greek equivalent is Chloris, who was a nymph. Flora is married to Favonius, the wind god also known as Zephyr, and her companion was Hercules.  Flora achieved more prominence in the neo-pagan revival of Antiquity among Renaissance humanists than she had enjoyed in ancient Rome.

Justus Sustermans (Flemish painter, 1597-1681) Vittoria della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany as the Goddess Flora

1620 Cornelis van Poelenburgh, (1594-1667) Woman Portrayed as Flora

1630s Claude Vignon (1593-1670)  - Goddess Flora

Justus Sustermans (Flemish painter, 1597-1681) Vittoria della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany as the Goddess Flora

Juan van der Hamen y (Gómez de) León (1596-1631) - Offering for Flora, 1627
18C Rosalba Carriera (Italian artist, 1675-1757) The Goddess Flora

Pierre Gobert (1662-1744)  - Retrato de Noiva as The Goddess Flora

18C Rosalba Carriera (Italian artist, 1675-1757) The Goddess Flora

1685-90 Lady as The Goddess Flora, by Jan van Haesbergen

  Jean-Marc Nattier (1685-1766) - Henriette of France as The Goddess Flora

Nicolas de Largillierre (French, 1656 - 1746) - Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans as The Goddess Flora

Jean-Marc Nattier (1685-1766) - Louise Anne de Bourbon Comtesse de Charolais 1731as The Goddess Flora

Nicolas de Largillierre (French, 1656 - 1746) - Marie Therese Bloneldharau  as The Goddess Flora

Nicolas de Largillierre (French, 1656 - 1746) - Portrait Of Françoise D'Escravayat, Marquise De La Barrière as The Goddess Flora

Nicolas de Largillierre (French, 1656 - 1746) - Porträt der Marquise de Gueydan  as The Goddess Flora

Gustave Jean Jacquet (French artist, 1846-1909) Flora

Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania

Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania

The Maypole

17C Pieter Gysels (1621-1691) Elegant figures playing Musical Instruments around a Maypole next to a Formal Garden

Centuries of Celebrating Spring

May Day, usually the 1st of May, celebrates the onset of summer, the height of Spring, & the flowering of life. The ancient European festival of spring, Beltane, features a goddess which manifests as the May Queen & Flora. A god also emerges as the May King & Jack in the Green. 

1669 Scene before a Maypole near stages with Alkmaar Church in the Background by Salomon van Ruysdael (Dutch Landscape Painter, 1600-1670). In England, permanent Maypoles sometimes were erected on village greens. In some villages, there also were smaller Maypoles in the yards of households.  In ancient European festivals of spring, Beltane, the dance around the Maypole represents their unity with the pole itself being the God & the ribbons that encompass it, the Goddess. Mayday is a festival of flowers, fertility, sensuality, & delight.

This painting is a copy of a painted wooden over-mantle, possibly showing the village of Weybridge c 1699-1701.  In this painting, many figures in 18C costume are depicted dancing around a painted wooden maypole. The painting is alleged to show the maypole set up on near the Ship Inn with the High Street in background.  Until the late 18C, Weybridge was as a very small village with a river crossing, seed milling to make flour & nurseries which would continue to provide the major source of home-grown income for the village until the 20C.

Josef Frans Nollekens (Flemish-born British artist, 1702-1748) May Day with a Maypole up on the hill. Some festival celebrants believed that on May Eve, you could bless your garden in by making love there with your partner. Union with the land was a May 1 focus, often with actual mating outside on other lands to bless fields, herds, home. 

Maypole at a Country Inn by Johann Peter Neeff (1753-1796) Revellers welcomed May at dawn with singing & dancing. Later communities celebrated with Morris Dancers & more formal pageants featuring Jack-in-Green& a May Queen to awaken the fertility in the Land.

1741 The Milkmaid’s Garland, or Humours of May Day, Francis Hayman.  In ancient spring-times, gathering & exchanging of Flowers & Greens was common on May Eve. Merrymakers decorated homes, barns, & other buildings with green budding branches. Men & women made garlands & wreaths of Flowers & Greens. 

18C Jan Josef Horemans II. (1714-1790) Villagers Making Merry with Maypole in Background.  Early communities prepared a May basket by filling it with flowers & goodwill & then giving it to someone in need of healing & caring. Women in early cultures formed wreaths of freshly picked flowers to wear in the hair to radiate joy & beauty. 

1767 Printed for Robert Sayer, London.  Early groups often danced the Maypole to feel the balancing of the Divine Female & Male within. In Pagan Rome, Floralia, from April 27-May 3 was the festival of the Flower Goddess Flora & the flowering of Springtime. Roman Catholic traditions of adoring statues of Mary with garlands of flowers on May 1 have Roman Pagan roots. On May 1, offerings were made to Bona Dea (as Mother Earth), the Lares (household guardian spirits), & Maia (Goddess of Increase) from whom May gets its name. 

Jan Josef Horemans the Elder (Dutch artist, 1682-1759),  Spring & Dancing Around The Maypole.  On May 1, early cultures followed a pastoral tradition of turning sheep, cows, other livestock out to pasture. In early Scandinavia, mock battles between Winter & Summer were enacted at this time. Maypoles in Spain sometimes were topped with a male effigy which was later burned. In Germany, Fir trees were cut on May Eve by young unmarried men, branches removed, decorated, put up in village square, & guarded all night until dance occurred on May Day. 

1761–1770 John Collet (British artist, c.1725–1780) A Satire of a May Day Scene in London.  Fire is a common accompaniment to many May celebrations. Celebrants mark the holiday by lighting fires, dancing, feasting & often performing fertility rites. Many built a bonfire & then moved through it or danced clockwise around it. Livestock was driven around a Beltane fire or between 2 fires for purification & fertility blessings. 

1800s Robert Walker Macbeth (1848-1910) - Maypole scene depicting an earlier era.  In ancient times Druid priests kindled it at sacred places. In later times, Christian priests kindled their spring fires in fields near the church after performing a Christian church service. Branches & twigs often were carried around these fire 3 times, then hung over hearths to bless homes.  

Frederick Goodall (British artist, 1822-1904) Here Goodall depicts the Raising the Maypole from an earlier era. Risk-takers made a wish for good luck before jumping a bonfire or the flame of a candle. Some believe during May the veil between the human & supernatural worlds is at its thinnest, making them potent days for magic. Beltane may refer to the “fires of Bel,” in honor of the Celtic sun god, Belenus. Some pagans believe fire has the power to cleanse, purify & increase fertility.

May Day, usually the 1st of May, celebrates the onset of summer, the height of Spring, & the flowering of life. In ancient European festivals of spring, Beltane, the dance around the Maypole represents their unity with the pole itself being the God & the ribbons that encompass it, the Goddess. Mayday is a festival of flowers, fertility, sensuality, & delight.

In ancient springtimes, gathering & exchanging of Flowers & Greens was common on May Eve.

In Pagan Rome, Floralia, from April 27-May 3 was the festival of the Flower Goddess Flora & the flowering of Springtime. 

1890 Golden Yellow Raspberries and Children Playing Maypole on Seed Catalog

Spring & Summer are the perfect time to celebrate the rebirth of Earth's Beauty & Bounty.  Flowers gave beauty & inspiration to mankind's basic struggle to live & to populate & to protect his home-base, The Earth.  Holding on to The Sweet Divine - The Lord God took man & put him in the Garden of Eden to work it & to keep it...Genesis 2:15.

Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania

1901 Spring Idyll by George Henry Boughton (1833–1905) - An American 20C Personification

George Henry Boughton (American artist, 1833–1905) Spring Idyll 1901.

 George Henry Boughton, (1833-1905) was born in Norwich, England as a farmer's son, Boughton emigrated to Albany, New York with his family at age 3. At 19, & without any formal training, he sold his 1st painting, The Wayfarer , at the American Art Union exhibition. 

His influences included Edward May, with whom he studied during a visit to Paris, & Édouard Frère. In 1862, 2 of Boughton's paintings were exhibited in the British Institution. He submitted 2 pieces to the Royal Academy in 1863, & over the next 42 years Boughton exhibited 87 pieces there. He made London his permanent home in 1862, married Katherine Louise Cullen in 1865, became a full member of the Royal Academy in 1896, & died in 1905 of heart disease.

Remembered as a figure & genre painter, Boughton illustrated works by American writers Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, & Washington Irving. He also wrote a narrative about his travels in Holland, Sketching Rambles in Holland (1885). 

He is mentioned by contemporaries as one of the most gifted artists of his day. An 1870 art critic suggests that Boughton was a humorist as well as a "poet-painter," & his pictures "have always had something in them--something well rendered, & something personal." His work was also admired by Vincent Van Gogh.

Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania

18C Personification of Spring (with background gardens, of course!) from Robert Sayer London in 1750

1750 Spring Published by Robert Sayer London

Here Spring is once again depicted as a fashionably-dressed young woman with flowers in her hair, picking a rose from a bush on the right, holding others in her apron, She is resting her elbow on a parapet overlooking a garden. In the background, a man is leaning against a garden balustrade, and a couple stand in front of a domed garden temple.

Spring 2022 at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania

18C Personification of Spring in the Garden from Carrington Bowles 1766

1766 Spring in the Garden... Published by Carrington Bowles After Robert Pyle done by James Watson London

Here Spring is a stylish young woman standing on garden terrace, adding a rose to flowers in her apron. Her elbow rests on the garden plinth of an urn covered in a trailing plant. A basket of flowers sits on the plinth.

Spring 2022 at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania

Earth's Creatures Stop to Smell the Flowers

 

Spring & Summer are the perfect time to celebrate the rebirth of Earth's Beauty & Bounty.  Flowers gave beauty & inspiration to mankind's basic struggle to live & to populate & to protect his home-base, The Earth.  Holding on to The Sweet Divine - The Lord God took man & put him in the Garden of Eden to work it & to keep it...Genesis 2:15.

The expression came into popular modern use in the 1960s & is a rephrasing of a sentiment found in an autobiography written by the golfer Walter Hagen: “Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”

17C Spring on Earth by William Marshall (British printmaker, 1617-1649)

William Marshall (British printmaker, 1617-1649) The Elements - Earth

Spring is the perfect time to celebrate Earth's Beauty & Bounty.  Flowers gave beauty & inspiration to mankind's basic struggle to live & to populate & to protect his home-base, The Earth.  Holding on to The Sweet Divine - The Lord God took man & put him in the Garden of Eden to work it & to keep it...Genesis 2:15.