Blooms of Meaning: The Secret Language of Flowers in Pre-Raphaelite Art
Time: April 25, 2025, 16:00
Venue: Room 306, Teaching Building II, Xianlin Campus, Nanjing University
Moderator: Yang Xiujuan, Associate Professor at the School of Arts, Nanjing University.
Speaker: Sun Jiaqi, PhD in Western Art History from Leiden University, bestselling author, independent curator, and founder of Qi ArtClub.
Content
This lecture explores the various plants and flowers depicted in Pre-Raphaelite works and their extended symbolic meanings.Flower language, as a form of cryptography, has been deeply rooted in Western culture since ancient times. However, it was not until the Victorian era that it evolved into a systematic lexicon and permeated all levels of society—from the aristocracy to the common people—with nearly everyone skilled in using the hidden meanings of flowers and plants to convey messages, including the Pre-Raphaelite painters.
