Richard Flahaut de la Billarderie
ART HISTORIAN
NATIONAL DELEGATE OF PARKS AND GARDENS
CONSERVATOR AT THE HOTEL MATIGNON
Flowers are present at all the happy and sad events of our lives as involuntary accomplices of our emotions.
The third day when God created them, he offered to man the joy of looking in wonder at Springtime which would be an announcement of our own resurrection after death.
We keep them, translators of our love, dried, between two yellowed pages of a book, reminding those who discover them of the sweet secret of a forever-young past.
In the many vibrant colors of their corolla they deliver, using a code of sensitivity, “messages” of passion, to the point of becoming auxiliaries in the language of images of the soul: red for love, rose for friendship, yellow for respect, blue for constance …
Antiquity attributed to each and every one of them divine origins and Olympus organized their destiny with laurels of Apollo, rainbow of Iris, the poppy of Demeter, the anemone of Adonis, the blood of Ajax, the reflection of Narcissus, the desire of Hyacinth.
As adornment of the Hortus Conclusus, they illustrate, in the Christian world, the perfume of excellence of those who recognize holiness : the lily for purity, the rose for sacrifice, the violet for humility, the carnation for solitude…
In the Orient they are the mystery of the world : roses of the Sufis, orchids of Petola, lotus of Vishnu, cherry trees of the son of heaven, tulips of the sultan… At the door of the desert they become a paradise where the fountains sing.
Gathered by the armful in the fields by the hands of children whose delicate heads they decorate with ephemeral crowns, they rain upon the paths of Honor and Triumph or die under the feet of dancers on wedding days.
Eyes of light, painters transform flowers into spots of color which become, to our eyes, thoughts and sentiments.
That is also the role of the florist or the horticulturist, the artist who recreates the world and who transmits our everyday emotions, embellishing our days with his works. His invaluable art appeals to our taste, his skillful hand appeals to our heart.