The symbolism of flowers and colours In our lives, no solemn event is without flowers. At drawing up of a bouquet it is necessary to know the value of colours and rules of a floral etiquette, then it will turn to the present gift.
Floral etiquette was born in the East and created by its women. Deprived of communication, not often daring to open their faces, they have transferred to the flowers all the shades of their moods and feelings. Once formed, the associations gradually turned into strong symbols, thanks to which it was possible to have a conversation. In oriental tradition it is considered important: when flowers are brought up, how the giver holds the bouquet: inflorescences up or down, in the left or right hand, whether the bouquet is decorated with leaves and whether the thorns are removed from the rose.
A young man gives a girl a flower and watches closely: if she pinned it on a corset, at the heart, it means she loves it, and if she put it in her hair - a warning.
The knowledge of floral etiquette came to Europe thanks to the notes of two people: Aubry de la Mottraye and Lady Mary Wortley Montague. Aubrey de la Mottre described his stay at the court of King Charles XII of Sweden in Turkey in the two-volume book "Journey... in Europe, Asia and Africa in 1727. The wife of the British ambassador to Istanbul in 1717, Mary Worthley Montague, described the secret language of love correspondence "to the villages", also called "the language of objects and flowers", in her letters published in 1763, shortly after her death, which made her famous.
At that time, each bouquet had its meaning. They were secret, encrypted messages that only two people could understand: the one who gives and the one who is given. In such a bouquet, it was important not only the flowers themselves, their colour, aroma, shape but also how they were presented, with inflorescences down or up, whether there were leaves, thorns, buds in the bouquet and how many of them they were, and even in which hand, in the right or left hand, the bouquet was presented. As Claire Powell writes in the book "The Meanings of Flowers", even the inclination of the hand had its meaning: to the right - "yes", to the left - "no". If a lady, accepting a flower from a gentleman, pinned it on her hair, it meant a warning, and if the heart - love.
Flower dictionaries were published throughout the XVII century, telling about the meaning of this or that plant. The language of flowers was very popular in France and England during the time of Queen Victoria. In the Victorian era, floral etiquette was used to secretly express feelings when they could not be spoken about openly.
In 1930, in St. Petersburg, the book "Selam or Flower Language" by the Russian poet D.P. Oznobishin was published, which described 400 meanings of plants. The symbols and meanings of flowers reflected the generally accepted associations, often fictitious and fictitious. The book was very popular among young people.
According to the long-established traditions of etiquette, the number of flowers in the bouquet is subject to the rule of "oddly up to a dozen", i.e. how many flowers in the bouquet are important, if there are three, five, seven, nine, eleven. Even the number of flowers (up to ten) in the bouquet is usually brought as a sign of grief at the funeral ceremony. If there are twelve or more flowers in the bouquet, their number no longer carries any particular semantic load.
The only flower is a special gift: according to the etiquette, it is allowed as a sign of special intimacy between the two persons. A noble rose on a long stem or a royal orchid. In certain situations, the only chamomile given to a loved one can tell more than a large bouquet of roses! Often excessive excess can destroy the individuality and sincerity of the gift, making it irritatingly pretentious or even vulgar.
Flowers in baskets - they have a special place in the rules of floral etiquette...
You can't talk about the language of flowers as a kind of Esperanto. There is a huge number of interpretations, each of which presents its versions of the transcriptions, often contradicting other sources. This difference in interpretations appears for spatial and temporal reasons. The same can be said about the languages we speak (French in France, Japanese in Japan, and Old Russian differs dramatically from the modern Russian language).
Having got acquainted with all variety of flower interpretations, I have convinced that it is simply not possible to unite and group all this. Therefore, I decided to dwell on the most interesting and most reliable, in my opinion, interpretations.
To be continued in the next part ...