The Emergence of Sixteenth Century Flower Painting
Ludger Tom Ring the Younger, Vases with Lilies and Irises, 1562, oil on panel, 64 x 41cm (each panel), Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History, Münster
Ludger Tom Ring the Younger is regarded as having created the earliest independent floral still lifes in Europe. The two panels, each dated 1562 represent two vases containing flowers; irises in one and irises and lilies in the other. Each are depicted against a black background upon a wooden tabletop. Inscribed diagonally across the surfaces of each vase is the Latin phrase “In verbis in herbis et in lapidibus est” (God is in the world, the plants and the stones). The narrow, rectangular format of the two panels suggests they may have been created as cabinet doors, whilst the Latin phrase might be a reference to the items (plants and stones) which are stored in an apothecary’s cabinet.
In the late sixteenth century, flower painting was eventually freed from its commitment as a symbolic and decorative element to a main subject matter and emerged as an independent theme. True to life studies of flowers and plants were not only crucial to the maturity of scientific illustration but also to the formation of the flower still life. It is not until this period that flowers were considered by artists as subject matter in their own right. Flower painting might even be considered more demanding as there is no pre-existing narrative to sustain the viewer's attention, or no sitter for the flowers to accompany, and so they simply become the focus of the painting.
The earliest example is Ludger Tom Ring the Younger's vases of flowers, which initiated the development of independent flower painting. They still pose the difficult question as to how much symbolic religious meaning may be retained, as the flowers depicted are attributed to the figure of Mary (irises and lilies). However, since the work exists independently and is not subordinate to another, it therefore marks an important turning point in the narrative of flower painting in German art.
