Assembly Of Flowers And Herbs

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

No, don't worry! Flowers and herbs did not come to the gathering to express their indignation to those who treat them ruthlessly, or to pay a low bow to the tireless workers of the dacha sotkas. It will be about the bouquets with which we love to decorate our homes, to give to loved ones and friends on solemn and sad days

The French word "bouquet"

As soon as this word is not translated from French: a bouquet, a bunch, a bunch and even an assembly!

Bouquet as a ritual

The decorative composition of flowers and herbs has ritual significance. She replaces words for people, when everything is clear without them. We give a bouquet to those whom we admire, whom we adore and love, when we make attempts to courtship or say goodbye to the one who has departed to another world.

The history of the birth of the bouquet

Several millennia ago, the ancient civilization in Mesopotamia decorated palaces and temples with flowers. The bouquets were made in the shape of a torch, placing flowers in tiers around the stem of the papyrus and securing them with fiber from raffia leaves (a type of palm tree). The bouquets added not only poppies, lotuses, violets, roses, irises, chrysanthemums, delphinium, but also branches of an olive tree and celery.

In ancient Egypt, traveling with the pharaoh's retinue had flowers among the necessary things. True, they were not placed in vessels with water. They served as a temporary decoration.

Ancient Rome and Greece are famous for the emergence of professionals involved in the preparation of bouquets. For women, bouquets are collected more delicate, for men more often bouquets were made not from flowers, but from one greenery. Flowers for bouquets, such as hyacinths, violets, mattiola, are being specially grown.

In the dark era of the Middle Ages, when the Inquisition was fierce, people had no time for bouquets. But times, fortunately, change, and the bouquet enters life again. Even the church symbolizes the Virgin Mary with a white rose, and Jesus Christ with a red one.

The shape of the bouquets will diversify. In the era of the Renaissance, a bouquet is born of the usual form for us. Later in Europe, light graceful bouquets that young beauties can hold in their hand become fashionable.

The 20th century, the century of urban growth, divorced from the wildlife of fields and forests, is characterized by an increased popularity of flower products. The craft of floristry is developing, the technology of assembling a bouquet is changing, new forms of bouquets appear.

Today bouquets are made not only from flowers. Fruits and berries, sweets, toys, all kinds of decorative materials (beads, feathers, brooches, fabrics) are used.

Modern types of bouquets

You go into a modern flower shop, and your head is just dizzy from the aromas and the abundance of all kinds of bouquets, made by the hands of professional florists.

* Round bouquet in the shape of a hemisphere. This form is most popular with buyers. Flowers in a bouquet can be very different, in addition, greenery is necessarily added. Biedermeier style bouquets, in which tightly packed small flowers are framed with tulle, ribbons or lace, are a type of round bouquet.

* One-sided or linear bouquet. Flowers for such a bouquet are selected in different lengths. Flowers are placed first, bright, large and with a long stem. Shorter flowers are laid on them in tiers. The bouquet may contain greenery that freely falls from it.

* Boutonnieres (miniature bouquets). They are used to decorate hats, hairstyles, dresses and jackets, curtains. A boutonniere can be made from one large flower with a leaf or greenery, or from several small flowers.

Striving for self-expression

We are lucky to live in very interesting times. Today man is trying to throw off the shackles of religious dogmas (not to be confused with the rejection of God), to free himself from the web of prejudices and remnants of the past. He is trying to realize himself, to understand who he is and why he is here.

This also affects the person's attitude to the bouquet. Buying a bouquet in a store, a person looks at it not just as beautiful and fragrant flowers. He wants the bouquet to be able to express his feelings, his inner self. Therefore, a florist needs to know a lot in order to please the client.

The style of bouquets can be very different. This is a still life bouquet, where flowers are intertwined with berries and fruits; this is a bouquet for a child with sweets or a surprise lurking among the flowers; this is a country style bouquet with tree bark or burlap; or a bouquet of some gentle blue-eyed forget-me-nots, reminding lovers not to forget each other.