Florals: Desire and Design Descriptive Audio Tour
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Florals: Desire and Design Descriptive Audio Tour Stop 1: An Era Begins Welcome to Florals: Desire and Design. My name is Deborah Metsger and I am the Curator of Botany at the Royal Ontario Museum. I research and curate the ROM’s collections of plants. In this exhibition I use my knowledge of botany and botanical history along with my skills in identifying plants and flowers to examine the Museum’s textile collection of Indian painted cottons, also known as chintz. This exhibition space is long and narrow. The show begins with a case of three botanical books from the 1700s. Each book is opened to a detailed botanical illustration that was engraved and then hand-painted. Next, four beautiful Indian painted cotton wall hangings line the two long walls of the space. These large textiles are more than 2 metres wide and 3 metres tall, extending from the floor to the ceiling. In the centre of the space are three luxurious fashion pieces that were worn by wealthy people of high standing and taste. At the far end of the exhibition space, are two ceramic pieces and a framed botanical illustration. Every museum object is covered with different designs of plants and flowers. The wall hangings and costume pieces in this exhibition were exported from India to Europe in the 1700s. This was a time when Europeans’ global trade and imperial ambitions brought an influx of novel objects. This included not only exciting luxury goods and artistic styles, but also plants. Europeans were fascinated by the new kinds of plants that were brought to their continent from around the globe. These plants and flowers had shapes, forms, and colours never seen before. Some were introduced as floral decorations on china, wallpaper, and cottons. Others came as dried specimens, or as seeds and roots that could be grown in gardens and glass houses. Everyone wanted these flowers—the stranger and more colourful the better. This opening section, titled An Era Begins, features a case with a number of different botanical books from the era. The introduction of these new plants to Europe increased the need to name, describe, and organize them. Skilled botanists and illustrators used detailed descriptions and images to publish books that made plants accessible to a wide audience. Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus developed a system of classifying plants by the numbers of flower parts. He also adopted a standardized system of naming each plant with a genus and species name. In 1737, Linnaeus wrote Hortus Cliffortianus, a catalogue of all the plants in a private Dutch garden. Linnaeus also premiered his classification system in this book. Famous botanical artist Georg Dionysius Ehret illustrated most of the plants in this volume. Enthusiasm for new kinds of plants fueled the desire for florals in all aspects of daily life from gardens, to home fashion, to clothing. This descriptive audio guide offers two more highlights of the different designs from the era. When you are ready, continue to the next stop in the middle of the exhibition near the elephant apple. Stop 2: Floral Motifs The wall hangings and costume pieces in the middle of the exhibition showcase a range of vivid colours and vibrant designs. Every detail, from the towering stylized trees to the tiniest cherry blossom, has been masterfully created by Indian artisans. They customized their products to suit the desires of the European market, which meant covering them with vibrant, colourful flowers. The colour of the base, or ground, of a piece can sometimes indicate the market for which it was made. For instance, the Dutch preferred a blood-red ground, while the English preferred a light-coloured or crisp, white ground. Some motifs are stylized, unique interpretations of plants that blend real and fanciful elements into one arrangement. Flowering trees on Indian Chintz are thought to be a hybrid form with distinct Chinese, Iranian, Indian, and European elements. The wall hanging near the elephant apple flower stretches nearly 3 metres wide and 2 metres tall and features one repeating pattern throughout. It has an outer border of red and blue detailing, as well as an inner border with the same colours. The flowers that make up the pattern are painted in rich reds, blues, purples, and yellows on a white ground. The flowers are energetic in style and are made more so by wispy feather-like leaves that bring movement to the piece. Researchers have come to call this wall hanging “Fancies of the Country,” likely because of a request made by the company that had ordered painted cottons for export to Europe. The buyers sometimes asked the Indian artisans to run with their imaginations and create “the works of any sort of rambling fancy’s of the country”—designs with “good brisk colours.” They specifically wanted a design that did not use common European flowers, but rather included colourful plants and flowers local to India. By studying the overall shape of the flowers, and the position and form of the flower parts, I have been able to match some of the floral motifs to Indian plants. For one of them, called the elephant apple because it is a favourite food of wild elephants, the petals are shown in purple, rather than white as they are in nature. Another flower on the wall hanging matches the distinct flowers of the flame lily, with its reddish flame-like petals arched backwards. And then there is a textured, three-lobed, delicately flecked fruit that I have identified as cotton. The nearby English overdress has a similar design. It has been made in robe a l’anglaise, or a fitted back, style. It narrows at the waist but has a full skirt and ruffled sleeves. The dress has a white base colour or ground that looks like Chinese porcelain. Its design is a repeat branching pattern of curling leaves and small flowers such as the morning glory, fritillary, pimpernel, rose, and tulip. This garment was likely created for an elite or middle-class European woman. When you are ready, move to the final stop at the end of the exhibition, Based on Botanicals and An Era Endures. Stop 3: Based on Botanicals and An Era Endures The popularity of plants and flowers continued, and botanical illustrations became increasingly important throughout the 1700s. Botanical artists painted these accurate visual descriptions of plants, both native and introduced, from specimens and from private and public gardens. These true-to-nature, or naturalistic, plant portraits were published widely as books, magazines, and even nursery catalogues. All of these publications increased public access to the latest fashions in plants. The popularity of botanical illustrations led to their additional use as decorative motifs on porcelain and textiles. In this case on the wall, the large “Hans Sloane” oval dish is an example of this use. The centre of the dish is decorated with three hand-painted flowers from the Americas—a tall stem of yellow hibiscus (Hibiscus canabinus); a blue iris (Iris versicolor); and a twining branch of green carpetweed (Mollugo verticillate). A butterfly, a caterpillar, and other insects are painted on the rim of the dish. This beautiful motif was copied from a painting by the famous botanical artist Georg Dionysius Ehret in his published collection of paintings called Plantae et Papiliones Rariores. Ehret had close connections to the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, a botanical garden that was growing many plants from other continents. The “Hans Sloane” dish was made by the Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory that was located nearby. It was part of a line of ceramics named for Sir Hans Sloane who was the patron of the Chelsea Physic Garden. Illustrations on other pieces in the same ceramic line are thought to have been painted directly from plants at the garden. Ceramic decoration of this type represents a shift from stylistic floral motifs based on aesthetics to naturalistic motifs based on real plants. The floral fascination of the 1700s laid the foundation for modern botanical sciences and continues to influence the decorative arts. The plants growing in our gardens, the botanical artwork on our walls, the floral motifs adorning our homes and clothing are all lasting legacies of this era. Where are the florals in your life? The magnificent textiles in this exhibition were custom-designed for Europe. To learn more about these objects and how the artisans of India supplied printed and painted cottons to the world, be sure to visit The Cloth that Changed the World: India’s Painted and Printed Cottons on Level 4, Patricia Harris Gallery of Textile and Costume, from April 4th to September 27th, 2020. .