Jean-Michel Othoniel: The Secret Language of Flowers (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum)

This book by contemporary artist Jean-Michel Othoniel catalogues flowers found in works of art at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, as well as their hidden historical meanings. An intimate herbarium of flowers. During his 2012 residency at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel (born 1964) delved into the archives of the magnificent garden that Isabella Stewart Gardner, the first American woman to graduate with a degree in horticulture, cultivated around her residence. Othoniel examined the museum (where nothing has been moved since its owners died) and photographed the flowers in the tapestries, ironwork, architecture, furnishings and paintings, in such masterpieces as van Dyck’s “Portrait of a Woman” with its innocuous rose, Piermatteo d’Amelia’s “Annunciation” with its majestic lily and Bartolom Bermejo’s “Saint Engracia” with its enigmatic palm. This giftworthy volume presents his art-historical ABC of these flowers, from Acanthus to Zea Mays. Hardcover 192 pages – 120 color Dimensions: 5.25 x 8.25″