Langsam und ganz sacht New exhibition Städtische Galerie Iserlohn
Langsam und ganz sacht New exhibition exhibition Städtische Galerie Iserlohn. Opening today 10.02.2023. Just like the exhibition title of my next exhibition, together with Hannah Schemel, in the Städtische Galerie Iserlohn also opens a tulip and moves every day a little more to the light. Slowly and very gently!
For a long time I have been dealing with the tulip in my artistic work and every time this plant fascinates me anew.
The biblical "Rose of Sharon" could be a tulip (Tulipa montana or Tulipa agenensis). Ancient Greek and Roman writers did not mention tulips, although some species are found in the Mediterranean region. They are also absent from Byzantine sources, as there seems to be little relationship between Byzantine and Ottoman gardens. In the Middle East, tulips were cultivated for centuries, with the garden tulip (Tulipa gesneriana) probably evolving from several wild species. Probably crosses from: Tulipa lanata, Tulipa clusiana, Tulipa aitchisonii, Tulipa stellata and Tulipa armena. Tulips are mentioned in writing since the 9th century in ancient Persian literature. The Turks took over the cultivation of tulips from the Persians. From the 13th century the plant is mentioned by poets. Tulips were also depicted in miniatures, on pottery and as dress patterns. From the 16th century they served as a garden plant. The preferred form was lily-shaped with pointed petals. However, during the "tulip period" (Lale devrı), Sultan Ahmed III also imported rounded garden tulips from Holland. In 1725, an illustrated tulip catalog was published. Ahmed III owned famous tulip meadows in the summer pastures (yayla) in Spil Dağı above Manisa. It is unclear whether these were wild tulips or cultivars.
From Turkey, the garden tulip came to Central and Western Europe around the middle of the 16th century. In Italy, tulipa is documented for 1549. The first description comes from the imperial ambassador to the court of Suleyman I, Ghislain de Busbecq, who described tulips in his Turkish Letters in 1554. The name he gave, tulipan (Turkish tülband 'turban band'), is probably due to a linguistic misunderstanding (naming the form, not the plant) or to a Turkish folk name for the plants. In written language, the tulips were called lalé in Turkish as in Persian. Busbecq probably sent among the documented seeds and bulbs also those of tulips to Vienna, documented is an illustration of the tulip under the name Narcissus by Pietro Andrea Mattioli in 1565. Conrad Gessner illustrated in 1561 a tulip, which he had seen in 1559 in the garden of the councillor Heinrich Herwart in Augsburg.[18] It may have been Tulipa armena or a cultivated form of this species. Gessner's description served as the basis for Carl von Linné's description of Tulipa gesneriana in 1753. The first more detailed works on tulips were written by Carolus Clusius, through whose active exchange activities tulips reached large parts of Europe. Towards the end of the 16th century, Holland became a center of bulbous plant breeding, especially tulips. A large number of varieties were created, including those with double flowers or with colorful flamed flowers, which was caused by a viral disease. Tulips became an object of speculation in upscale circles of Western Europe, the so-called tulip mania was born, until after a stock market crash in 1637 the commercial value of tulips returned to normal. In the decades following the Tulip Mania, the tulip evolved from a flower of the aristocracy and moneyed bourgeoisie to a widespread ornamental plant.
In the well-known hymn by Paul Gerhardt Gehaus, mein Herz, und suche Freud it says in the 2nd verse:
Narcissus and the Tulipan
They dress much more beautifully,
Than Solomon's silk
Here closes for me the circle to Jacob Boehme, with which I deal intensively for some time and try to implement his philosophy and thoughts in my visual language.