Roses, tulips, lilies and daffodils - flowers are not only a feast for the eyes, but also a remedy, accessory and symbol of love, faith and loyalty. In the Baroque era in particular, artists celebrated the ephemeral beauty of flowers and immortalised them in their paintings, as the new annual exhibition ‘B{L}OOMING - Baroque Flower Splendour’ at the Wallraf proves. With well-known and unknown still lifes, portraits and allegories from private collections and the museum's own holdings, some of which have been newly researched and freshly restored, the museum presents the boom and diversity of floral motifs in the Baroque period.
Flower painting began its triumphal march around 1600 in Flanders and soon became extremely popular in many European countries, as can easily be seen from the origins of the masters on display: Flemings such as Daniel Seghers and Jan Brueghel the Elder, also known as ‘Flower Brueghel’, Dutchmen such as Adriaen Coorte and Roelandt Savery as well as the Italian Giovanni Stanchi and the German Peter Binoit are united in the exhibition. All of their works ‘bloom’ just as colourfully today as they did on the day of their painterly birth 400 years ago.
