{"id":1196,"date":"2021-09-01T03:58:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T03:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghadaamer.com\/?p=1196"},"modified":"2021-08-31T04:08:43","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T04:08:43","slug":"modern-millefleurs-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ghadaamer.com\/gardens\/modern-millefleurs-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Modern Millefleurs – Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Created in different renditions for different locations around the world, Ghada Amer\u2019s series of Women\u2019s Qualities <\/em>gardens use plants and flowers to spell out words commonly associated with women\u2019s traits in block letters. Instead of painting flowers with oils or pastels, or even with thread \u2013 one of her signature mediums \u2013 Amer \u201cpaints\u201d an organic canvas with different types of flora rising out of the ground to form words for visitors to read and peruse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Flowers and plants have long been used in art to communicate women\u2019s qualities or values and to play a decorative role as well as a symbolic one in creative works. Woven millefleurs <\/em>(literally \u201cthousand flowers,\u201d in French) were often used to communicate religious or secular ideas, as Eleanor C. Marquand explained in her detailed study of the Unicorn Tapestries<\/em>, \u201cPlant Symbolism in the Unicorn Tapestries,\u201d 1938. (1)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Unicorn Tapestries, <\/em>drawn in Paris around 1500 and gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by John D. Rockefeller in the 1930s, are a remarkable set of works that provide an interesting complement and foil to Amer\u2019s contemporary garden. For example, the various plants and flowers that appear in The Unicorn Rests in a Garden<\/em>, such as the pomegranate, the wild orchid, and the thistle, are used to represent fertility, marriage, and procreation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n