Wounds of the soul: Reflections on Inge Hyson's The mindful garden

Abstract

Plant portraiture has never received good press, yet, perversely, the genre remains one of the most popular and therefore indispensable forms of visual art in the twenty-first century. Despite—or perhaps due to—its popularity, the depiction of plants is under-researched and undervalued by theorists and critics in the arts (Arnold 2001). Arguably, plant portraiture suffers from its inherent charm, its anthropomorphic qualities, and an uncomfortable association with popular ideas of happiness, loyalty and love, and their binary opposites, despair, betrayal and bereavement.

This review takes as its point of departure a connection between the sale of an Andy Warhol painting in 2006 and an exhibition of plant portraiture presented within the context of an academic endeavour and pedagogical environment in 2010. It considers the vicissitudes of plant portraiture from 1946–2009, and draws attention to the self-censorship an artist arguably feels herself obliged to undertake within the context of the perceived pariah status of flower painting. The review aims to broaden critical discussion of the genre and, finally, reflects on why it is that flowers ‘so often come to be taken as the representative object of imagining’ (Scarry 2005).