Cyclamen

A flower I never used to notice and have a growing affection for...

http://www.cyclamen.org/graecum_set.html

From http://www.cyclamen.com/en/consumer/find-out-about-cyclamen/cyclamen-stories/flower-of-love-flower-of-art

 

"Rich stories about cyclamen

Did you know that the cyclamen was, with the columbine, one of the flowers of choice for Leonardo Da Vinci at the beginning of the 16th century, and he covered the margins of his manuscripts with it.

The 17th century Flemish painters scattered cyclamens on the meadows where Jesus had just picked some flowers under the watchful eye of the angels."

*****

"Jean-Jacques Rousseau spoke in his Promenades of the wild cyclamens he discovered in the Alps.

After obscurity in the 18th century, the cyclamen came back in fashion in the 19th century, when gardeners cultivated it in Grenelle, near Paris. Emile Gallé and the artists of the Nancy School made it one of their models for their prints and paintings."

*****

"And Robert Desnos sung about it too: 

'The cyclamen of Clamecy,
Who regrets Savoy so much,
Proclaim here, proclaim there,
At the top of his voice.
But he is on the right track,
The cyclamen will return to Savoy.'"

http://www.creativejewishmom.com/2011/03/gorgeous-signs-of-spring-in-the-galil-israel.html