Composition 7

There can be no doubt that one of the main attraction of the flower piece to Dutch art lovers was its capacity to deceive the eye.

As well as taking pleasure in beautiful flowers, the Dutch took pleasure in illusion; the artist’s ability to create beautiful flowers using dabs of paint and a brush. Tricking the eye. Trompe l’oeil. Here a photograph of a real scene gives the illusion of a painting of a scene from nearly four-hundred years ago. It’s a baffling piece of trickery the Dutch would have loved.

Spring is bursting forth and all is hopeful in this charming potting shed of curiosities. Bulbs explode all over the scene, pansies, hellebores, paperwhite narcissi, crocuses. A miniature pewter urn with snowdrops; ranunculus and white jasmine in a horn beaker. On the soil in the foreground, more are starting to sprout.

Everywhere tools of the horticulturalist’s trade, secateurs, containers, a woven metal basket. A manuscript – a letter from a client perhaps. The fabric used to roll baguette dough being recycled for insulation. And scraps of lace, maybe to tie a spring arrangement, now that the flowers are back in bloom.