A Gentle Plea for Chaos by Mirabel Osler

Author:Mirabel Osler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

The Will of the Rose

Botanical Illustrations /

The Introduction of Etching /

Parkinson, Redouté and Margaret Mee /

Genocide to Buttercups /

The Intransigence of Roses /

A Folly with Three Roses /

Feral Roses /

Ruminating, Lolling and Lazing /

Soulless Flowers /

In Favour of Green Gardens

A hundred and fifty years ago Michael’s great, great-aunt Elizabeth Ranyard painted wild flowers in a book inscribed in spidery handwriting. Inside, on pages of beautiful dense cream and sometimes coloured paper all edged with gold, are paintings of such minute exactitude that a stamen or thorn appear to have been painted with an eyelash. The pale mauve crumpled petals of an opium poppy are done with a light touch as frail as gossamer, each hair on the stem finely lined without emphasis. The purply backs to the stems of coltsfoot are graded delicately, the colour merges into the green so naturally the flower almost stands clear of the page. The coarseness of the leaves of common comfrey which she found on the ‘shores of the Thames’ seems tangible. Veronica chamaedrys, smooth-podded ‘Sea Vetch’ and ‘Lady’s Finger Kidney Vetch’, bird’s foot trefoil, sea samphire, bee orchis, red hemp nettle and flimsy wood betony are among the flowers included in her book. The only concessions to artistic interpretation in some of the meticulous paintings, are very slight shadows that give a certain depth to the background.

Michael still has Elizabeth Ranyard’s painting box. Looking at its bulky squareness it is hard to understand how these ladies of the last century went about their painting, unless, like Queen Victoria’s granddaughter Princess Patricia, they had an escort of Japanese servants to carry their sketching implements. I somehow imagine aunt Elizabeth had no such help. Her walnut chest is full of graded paint brushes, some black lead powder in a small wooden box, various porcelain screw-top jars and tubes of paints from a wholesaler’s in Glasshouse Street. A wooden tray, divided into sections, each made to hold a rectangle of paint, lifts out. ‘Indigo’, ‘Indian Red’, ‘Lamp Black’ and so on are stamped on one side of the paint blocks, with the name of the suppliers, ‘Newman, Soho Square’. Underneath the tray, wrapped in a piece of yellowing newspaper, is a glass plate for use in a magic lantern, and a little book of price lists dated 1840. ‘These Outlines are prepared ready for Coloring, by means of which young people may paint their Slides. Price 6d each.’ For another 6d there are ‘Lectures to accompany Magic Lantern Slides’, cloth-bound and gilt-lettered. Amongst the titles are ‘Blue Beard, and the Timid Young Man’, ‘Pussy’s Road to Ruin, and the Lay of St Dunstan’ and ‘The Witches Frolic, and Lord Bateman’.

What talent in the drawing-room. How necessary the catalogues must have been, listing gilding and wax-flower-making materials, modelling tools, drawing pencils and best drawing pencils. What infinite patience and solitude are revealed in Elizabeth Ranyard’s flower paintings. I imagine her living a safe, restricted life in which embroidery, music and water-colours filled hours of every day;

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