Flowers and Symbolism

Flowers are often used as decoration in a vase or a gift to someone important to you. But in art and literature, flowers aren’t just decorative. They carry meaning, symbolism that’s used to tell another story beneath the surface and reinforce the narrative. That’s why knowing the symbolism of flowers helps us understand the implicit message of a piece of art.

Roses

If the first thing you think of when you hear about roses is love, you would be right! Roses symbolize love, passion and beauty. But that is typically for red roses, not for all of types of roses. Pink roses symbolize happiness, black roses symbolize death and dark crimson roses symbolize mourning.

Tulips

Tulips aren’t usually used for symbolism, but they still have symbolism. Just like roses, tulips represent love and passion, and similar to red roses red tulips represent a declaration of love. Yellow tulips used to represent hopeless love and jealousy but in recent years it has been gaining on a more positive meaning of happiness and cheerfulness. Variegated tulips, tulips that have multiple colors, represent that the recipient of the flowers has beautiful eyes.

Daisies

Daisies embody innocence, loyal love and purity. The most popular example of the symbolism of daisies in literature is in Hamlet by Shakespeare. In Hamlet, they embody innocence too, as the character Ophelia gives away flowers to others in the castle but keeps the daisies for herself because she finds only them to be innocent.

Sunflowers

Sunflowers symbolize different things in different cultures. In the West, sunflowers symbolize warmth, happiness and adoration. In Greek mythology, a water nymph Clytie adores the sun god Apollo and when he doesn’t return her love back, she sits looking at the sun and slowly transforms into a sunflower. In China sunflowers symbolize longevity and good fortune and in Japan they symbolize healing and hope.

Nightshades

Nightshades are interesting flowers. They possess a darker meaning than most flowers because the most popular nightshades are poisonous. In fact, the deadly nightshade (a type of poisonous nightshade) has been rumored to be the choice of weapon used by Livia to poison her husband, Emperor Augustus in the times of the Roman Empire. They represent the truth, danger, betrayal and death.

Lavender

Lavender embodies mainly serenity and calmness. The reason for this is I believe is that lavender and its essential oil are known for calming the nervous system and lowering blood pressure. But they also embody purity because of Egyptians using lavender as an antiseptic during the mummification process, and devotion because the color purple, the color of lavender, is the color of the crown chakra that’s believed to be on top of your head and is linked to the spirit.

Hyacinths

The symbolism of hyacinths changes dramatically based on the color. Purple hyacinths symbolize grief and sorrow, blue hyacinths symbolize loyalty and constancy, yellow hyacinths symbolize jealousy, red and pink hyacinths symbolize playfulness and white hyacinths symbolize loveliness.

Daffodils

Daffodils represent rebirth, resilience and hope. This is because daffodils often are the first flowers to sprout after winter, representing their resilience and the blooming period of daffodils is near Easter, representing their symbolism of rebirth. They also represent luck and prosperity in China as they bloom near Chinese New

Year as well!  

Poppies

Poppies symbolize sleep, peace and death. Poppies contain opium, a sedative used ancient Egypt which is where it gets the sleep and peace symbolism. While the resemblance of the poppy’s color to blood gave it its death symbolism. Poppies were also used as offerings to the dead in Roman and Greek myths.

I hope this has taught you something about the reason for the use of some flowers in art and literature and where the symbolism of these flowers are originated from!