Symbolism of plants: examples from European-Mediterranean culture presented with biology and history of art: OCTOBER: Roses

The rose is amongst the most highly esteemed of all garden flowers in many cultures with breeding and selection known in the Middle East from quite early in history. Modern roses have been selected variously for beauty, size, form, fragrance, repeated flowering, cold tolerance, and resistance to pests and diseases. This hedgerow rogue can now be enjoyed in flower at any time of year and the impact and beauty of their blooms has, over millennia, been reflected in their value to symbolism. The genus Rosa within the Rosaceae comprises a large group of wild species and a vast array of garden hybrids. Usually rose flowers have five sepals and petals and the leaves are pinnate. Their stems are prickly, a feature of contrast to the serenity of the flowers and of value in the symbolism of the rose. The prickles aid its climbing and rambling and deter foragers. Persia (Iran) and China are generally regarded as the original homes of today's classic garden roses (Kordes, 1960; Jacob et al., 1990). Krüssmann (1974) mapped the likely routes of the spread of garden roses from antiquity into the Middle Ages. Theophrastes (c. 370–287 BC) was already distinguishing single rose flowers from those with 12–20 and up to 100 petals (i.e. double flowers) (Sprengel, 1822). Rosa gallica, the Gallic rose or vinegar rose (Fig. 1), is a parent of many antique garden roses and its wild form is distributed across southern and central Europe. This species is characterized by a tendency to convert stamens to petals (double flowers), by the whitish inner parts of the petals and by reflexed pinnatifid sepals. Gallic or vinegar rose, Rosa gallica. Hadersdorf near Vienna (Kandeler). The rose is often called the ‘Queen of the Flowers’. The idea of the rose as an expression of the highest form of flower originated in Persia and from there spread to India and across the Middle East to Europe. Rose flowers are widely used even today as symbols of love and beauty, valued for their shape and their fragrance. They have also frequently been associated with nobility and are used as emblems of leadership and distinction, as in the British House of Tudor and as the state flower of Texas and of Alberta amongst others. The rose is also important in fragrances and in cooking, but the rose flower remains a symbol recognized worldwide. The oldest written testimony of the use of roses by humans originates from Mesopotamia. In the royal graves of Uruk, the cultural centre of the Sumerians (now ruins called Warka, in southern Iraq), Sir Leonard Wolley found cuneiform-script texts reporting on warfare by Sargon of Akkad (24th century BC) whose empire reached from western Persia to Asia Minor. Akkad crossed the Taurus mountains and brought back grapevines, figs, and roses (Heinz-Mohr and Sommer, 1988; Beuchert, 2004). By the time of the ancient Greeks, floor mosaics show elaborate rose garlands with double blooms [Fig. 2; Acropolis of Pergamum, now Turkey] and, at this time, the rose became the plant of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. For the Romans, roses were the flowers of Venus (corresponding to Aphrodite) symbolizing spring, love, beauty, and charm, but also a transitory state. There is evidence that they were farmed in large plantations as well as widely in private gardens. A wall fresco from a Pompeian house shows a double form of R. gallica in a garden, reproduced in a very naturalistic manner (1st century BC). Fragment of mosaic floor showing flower garland with roses (and a cross-rose). Altar room, Palace V, Pergamum (Asia Minor), 2nd century BC (Bingöl, 1997). In Christianity, roses became symbolic plants of the Virgin Mary and, in Islam, white roses became sacred symbols with direct contact to the prophet (Beuchert, 2004). In the Christian Middle Ages, roses were often depicted in altar paintings, two of the most famous being Stephan Lochner's and Martin Schongauer's ‘Mary in the rose-grove’ (both 15th century). But one finds them also as ornaments carved in stone on capitals and other structures of church architecture. There are many connections in art history between roses or rosettes and the cross in early Christian art. A Byzantine relief table is exhibited in the Museum of Ancient Corinth (Fig. 3). Here, eight rosettes, each of them twisted with the neighbouring one, and on the frame, all with each other, surround the cross, thus making it a cross of life. Relief table with cross, surrounded by eight entangled rosettes, Byzantine period. Museum of Ancient Corinth (Kandeler). In Flanders and Holland, a school of flower painting became active between the end of the 16th century and the middle of the 18th century (Hairs, 1985). Its founder was Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625), the son of Pieter Brueghel the Elder, who framed his pictures with flowers related to the subject of the pictures. In a painting of Mary with the Child and Elizabeth, John the Baptist, and angels, the landscape is surrounded by flower garlands rich in roses (Fig. 4). The Dutch schools emphasized the pleasures of life with rich, abundant plantlife. This was the transition towards the more decorative use of flowers in the following centuries. Exquisite paintings of rose varieties were produced for the French crown by Redouté (1759–1840). The current cut flower market is worth billions of dollars a year and the rose remains a perennial favourite, especially as a token of love. Thus the symbolic meaning of the rose has not been totally forgotten. Jan Brueghel the Elder. Flower garland with roses around Mary with the Child and Elizabeth, John the Baptist, and angels. Early 17th century (Hairs, 1985).

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