Dahlias in Art and Vintage Advertising

Darce · 2023-02-11T21:27:10+00:00

Ted posted some beautiful dahlias in vintage advertising a while back on cubit. I thought it might be a fun late winter thing to get a collection going of d...

Bessie

This is the watercolor painting that hypnotized me, and made me curious to seek the beauty of Dahlias in my garden.

Darce

Oh Bessie that is exquisite!

Darce

blown_dry
I think we need a Ken Burns documentary on the Great Dahlia Wars of Acquisition 🤣
Morgan Freeman narrating and reading entries about dahlia buying hits and misses from dahlia addict forum in a somber voice!

Ailhad

Darce WOW - Renoir's dahlias are gorgeous! He must have had access to quite a nice collection of dahlia varieties - more than a 100 years ago!

calico20hill

Now that is the one I want to copy in my garden! Delphinium were my mom's favorite and I always associate them with her. A collection of delphinium with white dahlias would be blissful! She would probably approve of a pink climbing rose near bye since she loved the soft gentle colors. I would vote for the rambling Dr Van Fleet pale pink rose she grew and let climb into trees on our farm. Such a lovely fragrance and it would take 70 years off my life in a moment

Darce

calico20hill
My mom’s favorite colours were soft too- misty blue and smokier deep blue so the delphinium hues in that painting remind me of her even tho we could never grow them in Texas. The blues we had in Texas were from bluebonnets - fields of wildflowers in the most vibrant blue possible.

I think the combination of plants you describe sounds heavenly!

Krista

We’ve had some wild weather today, pouring rain, thunder, and a good round of hail earlier this evening. I imagine this means other parts of the state are getting more extreme temperatures and storms.

Krista

Well,I posted this in the wrong discussion. My apologies!

Honnat

It's interesting to see these vintage pieces. Clearly our obsession with neat formal decorative and ball types is a recent phenomenon. Nothing of the sort in any of those.

Darce

Honnat
The Victorians and Edwardians loved the shaggy opulence of a bed head dahlia but earlier painters went nuts for precise geometrical petal formation! It’s absolutely amazing what hybridisers did in Europe in the early 1800s. I found this really great and informative short piece from the UK Garden Trust on this- and my info is from it. The dahlia was first taken from its native lands by the Spanish and then was passed to and fro between various Spanish, French and German horticultural scientists and plantsmen in the last part of the 1790s. It hits Britain around 1802 and this image of a single species red dahlia was published in a British botanical magazine in 1804.

https://thegardenstrust.blog/2018/08/11/dahlias/

Teddahlia

Wonderful pictures of glorious dahlias. This new "Cubits" is really working well.
One Perfect Dahlia
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet—
One perfect dahlia .

I knew the language of the floweret;
“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.”
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect dahlia .

Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect dahlia

Plagiarized by
Ted Parker .

Darce

Teddahlia

With gas prices fluctuating - maybe the one perfect limo is not such a great get anymore😂
I’d still rather have the perfect dahlia

SteveM

les pétales de fleur - circa 2009.
My attempt at Impressionist photography using dahlias and dahlia petals. The concept was good but the execution lacked patience.🙂

blown_dry

@Teddahlia SteveM
applause

Darce

SteveM

I love this! Particularly the dark purple petals to create a moody backdrop- this is a striking concept and I would love to see more of your experiments in ‘painting’ with petals - a gardener’s variation of the Pointillist school! Sunday in the Garden with Steve M😊

AndreaB

SteveM My attempt at Impressionist photography using dahlias and dahlia petals.

I love this, Steve. The colors are gorgeous. Never would have known it was rushed if you hadn’t squealed on yourself. 😉

PNWGal

SteveM Brilliant! I always figured there should be something cool to do with all those petals from blooms that shatter!

Darce

Hybridisers are amazing! They spread the new dahlia wealth SO quickly.In just a few short years dahlias start to show up in paintings like this 1817 stunner by Dutch painter George Jacobus Johannes Van Os. The dahlias are still single but we have a lovely warm pink as well as red

All the images are public access from wiki commons

Darce

In roughly 3 plus decades after its introduction to Europe the dahlia - via the amazing efforts of hybridisers- had turned into a multiplicity of dazzling formal perfection. Look at this 1935 painting by Delacroix

Darce

Darce
Ha need to get another coffee - obviously it’s supposed to be painting by Delacroix in 1835 not 1935 -whoops!

Darce

And in the 1835- 1840 works by Danish still life painter Johan Laurentz Jenson are SO amazingly detailed! The flowers look like they could have come from a Swan’s catalogue.

Darce

Final and my favorite painting from Jensen - I absolutely want to purchase some of these dahlias! I feel like these are the ancestors of some of our most favourite ones - I know that black dahlia would sell out in a hot minute

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