Tulip fever
We have been waiting for this moment.
The early double, fringed and parrot tulips are maturing nicely, reminding me of their loveliness as they start to take colour and stretch gracefully towards the light, like dancers in full frilly tutu regalia peeking out from behind the curtains to the side of the stage. They herald the start of spring and appear as the days lengthen and our hearts quicken with the prospect of warmer days.
(Jacob van Walscapelle, ‘Flowers in a Glass Vase’, about 1670 )
Originally from central Asia, tulips meandered along the spice routes to land in Holland, where these exotic and ephemeral blooms were highly coveted, leading to a mania in the mid 1600 where a single bulb could command the price of a handsome mansion on the Amsterdam Grand Canal. Still life paintings celebrated the frilled, the fringed and the variegated - often seen as miraculous, though now understood to be mutations due to a virus.
Tulips are cool weather flowers. Their season is brief and it could take several years to complete a still life, a true dedication. They are also masters of the fade. There is a moment of sadness when they are past their best, and then they become something other - beautiful translucent twisted papery structures amongst still green foliage, offering a different architectural perspective and a perfect expression of the ephemera of life.
(the first of the season - tulips Shirley double and Peptalk)
After the long low grey of winter, there is a fizzy joy in the air as spring takes hold and the ground pulsates with life. The birds sing wildly and remind us to wake up, and I understand how tulip mania could have occurred and I would have happily paid the price of a large mansion for the possibility of glimpsing the promise of awe and wonder that these flowers command.
Rather like an absent minded squirrel, I cannot fully recall the colour palette I had swooned over in May for the bulbs planted in faith in November. I am drawn to the blousy, the romantic, the striking, the curious, the unconventional, the scented.
And they are all exquisitely beautiful.
