Arts & Culture
The Use of Symbolism in Dutch Golden Age Flower Still Life Paintings
Quick fact
Some of these painted flowers never bloomed together in real life—artists composed bouquets from different seasons to make the perfect symbolic arrangement—and were sometimes worth more than a house during 'tulip mania'.
Why this is interesting
Walk into a room with a Dutch flower painting and you might see a gorgeous bouquet. But those tulips and roses aren't just pretty—they were the 17th-century equivalent of a coded tweet, full of hidden messages about life and death.