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When sunflowers were introduced from America in the mid 16th Century, news of their vast height and radiant flowers spread rapidly through Europe. The first description, written by the Spanish botanist Monardes, reached England in a book entitled 'Joyful news out of the new found world'.
The name sunflower was already used for related flowers, especially marigolds, and the idea of opening to face the sun and following its course across the sky also applied to daisies - originally 'day's-eyes'.
A flower motif inspired by daisies or marigolds, but exaggerated to look more like the sun and its rays, appeared in Roman mosaics and medieval church carvings long before sunflowers themselves arrived. In this sense the new sunflowers seemed to embody ancient traditions, and this was echoed in the Latin name Helianthus, deriving from the name of the Greek sun god Helios.
Meanwhile, in America, the Incas had made sunflowers the symbol of their god, but in 17th Century Europe sunflowers came to represent kingship at its most vainglorious. For instance, Charles I of England and later Louis XIV of France were referred to as the Sun King.
Like royalty, sunflowers lost favour and 18th Century gardening manuals suggested banning these oversized plants from flowerbeds. Instead they became useful crops, producing oil from the seeds, and also fibres, dyes and medicines.
But sunflowers were to rise again in artistic status. In the 19th Century the aesthetic movement, led by fashionable figures such as Oscar Wilde, popularised the sunflower as a motif in decorative art. Far more enduringly, Van Gogh imparted new heights of meaning and popularity with his series of sunflower paintings. In these he sought to reflect the heat of the sun during the summer at Arles, and its creative energy.
More about the sunflower from BBC Gardening |
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 Tulip
Sunflower
Lily
Rose
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A painting in the National Gallery by PT van Brussel shows several flowers originally from America, including a sunflower, falling from the vase onto the ledge beneath. This may be a reference to the American War of Independence.
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