A Rose a Day No. 40
This is a work by the contemporary Colombian artist Doris Salcedo (b.1958), entitled A Flor de Piel (2014).
The artist and her team stitched together hundreds of deep red rose petals, each of which has been chemically treated to preserve their dark hue and pliant texture within a huge canopy which is intended to lie creased and pleated on the floor.
A flor de piel is a Spanish idiomatic expression meaning ‘on the surface of the skin’, used to describe extreme emotions that are beyond words, and the work was inspired by a Colombian nurse who, after providing care to injured parties on both sides of Colombia’s protracted civil, was kidnapped and tortured to death. Salcedo has found a powerful analogy for the eruption onto the skin’s surface, but of the transfiguring of the suffering through the ethereal beauty of the rose petal cloak.
By linking the blood red rose petals to the human skin and to a contemporary context of political anarchy and systemic violence, Salcedo has also succeeded in instilling new and unsettling life into the age-old comparison that likens a woman’s skin to a rose petal.
Image Source: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/31379
A Rose a Day No.29
As is well known, Pablo Picasso had a Rose Period (1904-1906), which followed on from a Blue Period. These were essentially his ‘farewell’ to sentimental Symbolism, before he began the arduous journey toward Cubism. Not surprisingly, some of his Rose Period paintings include roses, such as this one from 1905, entitled ‘Boy with a Pipe’. He is wearing what look like Damask roses as a head garland, and behind him (on wallpaper?) are flower bouquets including roses.
In 2004, ‘Boy with a Pipe’ fetched a record $104 million at auction at Sotheby’s, at that time the most expensive painting ever sold. It was observed the work’s popularity was a reflection of the fact that the Rose Period is one of Picasso’s ‘happiest’.
Here are a couple more Rose Period works with (maybe) roses:
Pablo Picasso, 1905, Acrobate et jeune Arlequin (Acrobat and Young Harlequin), oil on canvas, 191.1 x 108.6 cm, The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.
Pablo Picasso, 1905, Maternité(Mother and Child), private collection
I grew up looking at this painting, as my father, somewhat bizarrely, asked for it as a wedding present, and it was prominently displayed in our ‘Sitting Room’. It wasn’t just a print, either, but a hand-painted copy in a fancy frame. But is it a rose in the mother’s hair? No. It’s more likely a carnation, as this was the traditional choice in the Spanish flamenco tradition which Picasso evokes.
On occasion, artists can be privileged with a rose named in their memory. There is one called ‘Picasso’ marketed in 1966, whose flowers give the impression of each having been individually hand coloured:
This has become part of the burgeoning and lucrative Picasso franchise that also includes a brand of automobile. As you can see, ‘Picasso’ is indeed a pink rose, but rather too deep a shade to evoke his ‘Rose Period.’
The idea of ‘hand painted’ petals has been fully exploited by the French nursery, Delbard, mentioned earlier, who markets a line called ‘Roses des Peintres’ – painters’ roses – including a creamy white and pink bi-colour rose called ‘Claude Monet’ (1992), and another called ‘Henri Matisse’ (1995), who’s petals suggest they have been painted with crimson and pink splashes. This is ‘Claude Monet’:
