April Showers Bring MFA Flowers

There are two ways to approach the annual “Art in Bloom” festival at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). For the artistically snobbish the event—which invites New England Gardening Clubs to interpret the MFA’s paintings in flower arrangements—is a chance to scoff at the genteel world of Gardening Clubs and Ladies’ Societies and their decidedly bourgeois tastes.

The second way to approach the popular three-day festival is a happy marriage of magnificent art and beautiful flowers. The colorful, gravity-defying bouquets in “Art in Bloom” will win over even the most hardened skeptic. And given the amount of public interest and revenue that “Art in Bloom” generates for the MFA, it is no wonder that the event has become the darling of both the museum and its visitors.

The 72 works chosen for floral interpretation included such museums stars as John Singer Sargent’s “The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit” and Paul Gauguin’s “Women and a White Horse,” but also lesser-known works such as a small ancient Greek “Head of Aphrodite” from the 4th century B.C. and a delicate gold Indonesian crown from the 13th century. Although using furniture as the basis for floral interpretation might seem difficult, a surprising number of arrangements dealt with cabinets, chairs, silverware, and other “objets d’art.”

Flower arranging requires expert precision and creativity. Unlike an artists’ traditional tools of paint or marble, flowers can wilt, pale, droop and behave in other unmannerly ways. Yet this ephemeral nature of the flowers is what brings the works to life. “Art in Bloom” juxtaposes timeless canvases and temporary blossoms, and offers viewers the opportunity to see older works in a new light.

“Art in Bloom” represents the Olympics of flower arranging. The museum secretly gives each garden club its assignment early in the spring. Unlike flower arranging competitions, where arrangements are rigorously judged, “Art in Bloom” opens the door to all sorts of bold floral arrangements. In one of the most effective arrangements, created by Susan Kaplan of the Beth Shalom Garden Club, three thick, pitch-black palm spades interspersed with pink bird-of-paradise form a sharp, pyramid-like construction. The angles echo the shape of Alexander Archipenko’s sculpture “Turning Torso,” a simple abstracted nude in blue bronze.

Many of the arrangements seem to push the paintings they are based upon from two-dimensions into three-dimensions. In the Simpson Park Garden Club’s interpretation of George Inness’s “Blue Niagara”, for example, an elegant cascade of white orchids flowing from a stony vase perfectly matches the natural majesty of the waterfall scene. In the Hendrik Goltzius’ “Susanna and the Elders,” one of this year’s newcomers to the museum, a very fleshy Susanna lounges between a pair of men who peer at her connivingly. In the interpretation by Marie Ellison of the Falmouth Garden Club, a low-slung arc of coral lilies seamlessly follows the line of Susanna’s body, while a flurry of cream chrysanthemums echoes her scanty drapery. On the right and left, dramatic waves of budding larkspur and lavender freesia descend upon the central flowers like the leering old men. These literal interpretations seem to offer the most fun for visitors who want to go through the exhibits trying to match each flower to a particular brush-stroke.

Other works take more evocative, period approaches to their subjects, with often breathtaking results. In the interpretation of Gauguin’s epic “Women and a White Horse” by Cynthia Antonopoulos of the Wollaston Garden Club, exotic tropical flowers fans out like a hanging garden and draws us into the Tahitian world of the painting.

For lovers of great art and great flowers, “Art in Bloom” does not disappoint. Instead, it provides viewers with the chance to see many of the favorite MFA works—and a few new ones—from a refreshing perspective.