
A botanical can hold an plethora of sediment as a living thing, beauty, value and through symbolic context. As tulips are heavily associated with the early signs of spring, historically speaking these delicate petals exemplify money, power and greed. Tulip Mania was a phenomenon during the Dutch Golden Age that created a financial hub around tulip bulbs. Rare kinds of tulips were sold at extreme high prices before the market crashed a year later. It’s the rise and fall, the immediacy of mortality, in the span of a year, and a season. The dutch golden age was short-lived as is the life of a flower. Flash forward a couple centuries as bunches of botanicals rooted their own dialect. White tulips in particular represent forgiveness, and love. Mimicking the painting style of Northern Europe from the 17th century, I wanted to create an illustration of a symbolic object that society has spotlighted in different ways. By using history as new way to look at flowers this is my interpretation of “The Forgiveness of the White Tulip”. Here’s to forgiveness what ever that may look like today and the value of our time in this moment.
