The secret language of flowers. Notes on the hidden meanings of the Louvre's flowers

Written in French.

To mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Louvre Pyramid, Jean-Michel Othoniel has been invited by the museum to produce a book on the importance of flowers in its eight departments. The artist has put together an unpublished herbarium accompanied by notes he has written on the secret language of flowers and their symbolism in ancient painting. He thus reveals their hidden meaning by telling their stories and mythologies.
This work is presented as a notebook that the artist has nourished throughout the rooms of the Louvre Museum, where we find the thistle in Dürer's self-portrait, the poppy in the funerary stele of Paros, the apple on the stool in Fragonard's Verrou, or the peony in the untucked shirt of Greuze's Jeune fille à la jug cassée.

208 pages

Actes sud/ Louvre éditions
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