Vanitas: the world encapsulated in ‘a rose’

“A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” is the tautological verse, brimming with allusions, echoes and suggestions, an immortal tribute to Gertrude Stein, a true distillation – as Umberto Eco so aptly observed – of readings, feelings and conjectures that directly engage the reader, particularly the European reader, who – from the indispensable for us Italians “Fresh and most fragrant rose” by Cielo d’Alcamo or the Roman del Rose, and on and on right up to Baudelaire’s upheaval and beyond – is inevitably confronted with the highly symbolic world of flowers.

Whilst the role of plants is fundamental in poetry, it is perhaps even more significant in the history of art, with the image of flowers having been associated, since antiquity, through a succession of metaphors and allegories, with the concept of beauty and the transience of life. Foremost among these are the ‘vanitas’ paintings, works in which cut or wilted flowers are juxtaposed with skulls and dying animals, thereby alluding to the futility of earthly possessions in the face of the ever-looming inevitability of death.

In Ferrara, following the handover of Palazzo Barbantini-Koch to the city – the building having undergone a major restoration as part of the ‘BPER Cultural Hubs. A System of Widespread Heritage’, a highly refined exhibition dedicated specifically to the theme of Vanitas has opened, entitled ‘Vanitas, Flowers and Symbols from Hayez to Casorati’.

The exhibition which – in an iridescent explosion – subtly conveys the silent, enveloping tension that leads from intoxicating beauty to a deadly withering, almost a memento mori, only far more splendidly colourful – traces the evolution of flower painting in Italian art between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In doing so, it offers the finest interpretation of that universe which, whilst avoiding the trap of affected decoration, guides the viewer – through a carefully curated selection of over 40 works, including paintings and sculptures – to the dizzying heights of the most intimate and existential reflection.