Garden Museum

Room 11 – Flowers in the garden

 

With their multitude of colours and scents, flowers have always been the most beautiful decorative element of any garden. Every epoch had its favourite flowers, but three of the numerous varieties stand out in particular: the rose, the tulip and the carnation.

The use of flowers in gardens and parks was always subject to changing fashions. If it was the effect of the individual flower that was valued during the Renaissance, in the Baroque age it was the overall impression created by all the plants together.

During the Biedermeier period, flower decoration spilled over into all the art forms. Living rooms and furniture, but also clothing, textiles and crockery were decorated with flowers. The various flowers had also retained their symbolic value, which dated back to antiquity. Thus the rose was the image of beauty and love, the carnation symbolized piety and the tulip transitoriness.