Poetry and art have enwreathed the entire life of Jesus Christ with flowers.
‘The Annunciation was the festival of early spring. Christ, whose birth was foretold by Gabriel, was a flower that blossomed from the stem of Jesse; His Mother, to whom the imagery of the Song of Solomon was applied, was a flower of the fields and a “lily of the valley.” And the place where the Annunciation occurred had a name, Nazareth, which in Hebrew, according to an old but incorrect interpretation, means flower. Such a meeting of associations was naturally not left unutilized by the theological authors. It was often set forth in sermons how the promise of the birth of God as man was connected with the spring’s promise of flowers and fruit. S. Bernard in particular worked out the flower symbolism of the Annunciation in poetic and ingenious conceits. The flower, he said, had been willing, at the time of flowering, to be born of a flower in a flower—i.e., Jesus permitted Himself to be announced to Mary at Nazareth in the spring: “Flos nasci voluit de flore, in flore, et floris tempore.”’[243]
So we find a stem of lilies or a vase of flowers as the symbol of His miraculous birth, and on the morning of His nativity rejoicing angels carried olive branches as they sang of peace on earth and goodwill towards men. A helpless Infant, He lay upon the ground to receive the Adoration of His Mother and of angels, among roses of love and lilies of purity, or in grass thick with the daisies, violets and strawberries which told of His innocence, humility and righteousness.
As a boy, growing perhaps to a consciousness of His mission, in Spain He is found with thorny roses, wounding Himself sometimes with the thorns of grief and suffering springing from His divine love itself.
Early devotional art left Christ’s life with its miracles and parables and passed to His Passion. For the entry into Jerusalem there is the palm of victory and the olive branch of peace. In the Ecce Homo He wears the Crown of Thorns, and the reed as a sceptre is placed in His hand. For the Crucifixion Signorelli painted below the Cross many pleasant flowers, among which are noticeable the violet and daisy. But the Northern schools reserved for this scene the bitter herbs and flowers, the willow, dandelion and thistle. These weeds, carefully chosen and painted with marvellous minuteness, fill the foreground in the Crucifixion by an unnamed German master in the National Gallery.
In the last scenes of all of the divine tragedy there is no symbol but the Crown of Thorns, and to the Resurrection no flower is specially dedicated. But in the Thomas Altar,[244] by the Master of the Bartholomew Altar, the newly-risen Christ is shown, and round His feet, upon the marble step, are lying blossoms of violets and daisies and seven heads of the holy columbine.
The passion flower does not appear in art before the seventeenth century. It was unknown in Europe before the Spanish conquest of South America, and it is said that when the Jesuits brought home reports of the miraculous flower bearing the insignia of the Passion, which grew from tree to tree in the forests of the new land, their tale was first received as a pious invention. But the plant itself at length arrived, and early in the eighteenth century Francesco Trevisani painted a delightful little picture[245] less noticed than it deserves to be. The Virgin, who is very sweet and gentle, both in pose and expression, sits sewing beside a table on which is a vase of roses and lilies. The little Christ, who has apparently just run in from the garden, points out to His Mother, with a most childlike gesture, the little thorny crown upon the passion flower which He holds in His hand. The picture, which is not unlike the work of Andrea del Sarto in miniature, is wonderfully attractive.
XVII
THE FLOWERS OF THE VIRGIN
There were many flowers used by the early writers as similes of the Virgin.
‘Thou art the myrtle and the blooming rose of Paradise,