29.03.2020

Art flowers in the museum Collection exposition in the section Decorative Arts

Human beings appreciated the health-giving powers and beauty of these amazing natural wonders, delighting the eye, and have included flowers in the cultural context since the dawn of time. Flowers were associated with the higher forces, they symbolized the gods and goddesses power or will, were meant to be an offering during religious rites.

Flowers inspire artists, poets, architects, composers to create great art works. Flowers, bouquets, foliage ornaments were cast in bronze, plaster, glass, they were carved of wood, cut out of marble or precious stones.

Flowers encapsulate beauty that will allow nobody to stay indifferent. They present bright and vivid feelings, delight the eye and soul. Hence, just like many splendid in nature, they are ephemeral and their beauty fades too quickly.

Omniform flowers can be cut out of stone. It is a point of honor for an artisan to cut a lifelike flower - with leaves, veins, and staminas. Danila from the famous Ural tale The Mistress of the Copper Mountain by Pavel Bazhov persisted in doing his work after the image of stramonium.

Carl Faberge, one of the allegiant connoisseurs of Russian ornamental stones, while creating a series of works “Single flowers in vase”, placed “flowers” in transparent vases with “water” made from rock crystal.

If we talk about the contemporary lapidary art, we cannot pass up a cute German town of Idar-Oberstein. It appertains to the so-called German Gemstone Road, founded in 1974. Lapidary art is thought to have originated in this German city in 50 BC, when Julius Caesar visited this place. However, in 1609, the principal citizens of the town decreed, “no foreigner can join lapidary art in Idar-Oberstein, and the skills should be passed on from generation to generation”. Therefore, it is officially accepted that lapidary art originated there, and grew rapidly in the early 17th century.

For centuries, the town inhabitants’ primary occupation was mining, grinding and cutting precious and ornamental stones. Nowadays Idar-Oberstein is called “the city of jewels and jewelers".

Museum Collection exposition features the works of the prominent artisans -Paul Dreher, Manfred Wild, Luis Alberto Quispe Aparicio, Eberhard Bank, Carl Faberge, Emile Galle and others.

New photo album with the images of spring flowers from the collection sections Glass Art  and Lapidary Art is our Photo Gallery.