It’s high summer and gardens are in full bloom. You have to love the summer garden with all its bright colors and heavenly smells, even the weeds look pretty when they flower.

Flowers have played a role in most art forms, provoking emotions and as gestures of sentiment. With a Google search, you can uncover lists of flowers and their historic meanings, their use in folklore and fairy lore, and numerous quotes by famous artists and writers.

In early Western Art History flowers provided a rich visual symbolism for understanding God’s Holy Word. The lowly dandelion, symbolic of innocence and nostalgia ranks with the white lily and the rose.

Moving toward the Impressionists, gardens gave artists the freedom to experiment with composition and color. Many artists of this period were avid horticulturists as was Claude Monet, the most important painter of gardens in the history of art.

“I owe it to flowers that I became a painter.”   Claude Monet

Georgia O’Keefe, best known for her abstracted flower studies, aimed to make the viewer really look at the flower.

“Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”   Georgia O’Keefe