THE ASSOCIATIONS OF FLOWERS 257 



flowers' typical beauty. One can see that even to 

 the humble artist of the catalogue these flowers are 

 familiar, not as mere objects of commerce, but as 

 elements of his own life, and that in painting them 

 he has been concerned, not merely with the indif- 

 ferent representation of facts, but with the expression 

 of feelings common to his race. Thus even he, work- 

 ing with a professedly commercial object, has com- 

 mand of a tradition which is altogether wanting to 

 the best European flower painters, and which was 

 wanting also to the Dutch flower painters of the seven- 

 teenth century. They, with all their skill, painted 

 like florists and for a nation of florists. One can see 

 that they belonged to a people who thought of flowers 

 rather as ornaments for the house than as having an 

 independent life of their own. In their pictures the 

 flowers are always composed into elaborate nosegays, 

 autumn, summer, and spring flowers all mixed to- 

 gether. They communicate to us no sense of their 

 growth. They are interested only in the individual 

 blossom, not in the plant; and their favourite dewdrop 

 is intended rather as a touch of realism and a proof 

 of skill than as a suggestion that the flowers have 

 ever grown out of doors. But the Japanese flower 

 painters, even the catalogue artists, treat flowers like 

 landscape painters rather than like florists. They 

 may show us only a few blossoms, but they seem to 

 be growing in the open air. They always insist as 

 much on the character and growth of the whole plant 

 as on the beauty of individual flowers; and it is plain 



