tulips – the heart thrills

WILD TULIPS

Beijing, 24 April 2013

I am lucky to live close enough to the office in Beijing to be able to go home for lunch. Which means that for the last week I have been walking, four times a day, past the bed of tulips that our buildings management had thoughtfully planted outside the front door and which has finally bloomed.

The bed has attracted considerable attention from the locals, who have stopped to admire, to photograph, and of course to be photographed in front of.

I must admit, I am not a huge fan of tulips, especially when they are planted in massed beds like this. These massed plantings are not helped by the strong colours of so many commercially available tulips. I mean, look at the colour combination in our building’s bed: bright red and bright yellow. I’m sure the colours were chosen with very deliberate intention: red for happiness in China’s iconography, yellow for wealth. So, “Happy Spring! Be wealthy and be happy” (as my father was fond of repeating, “money may not be the source of all happiness, but it surely helps a lot”). But it’s just too … much.

I believe that the Netherlands tourist board touts tours of its tulip fields when they are in bloom, travelling around – of course – by bike. I cannot think of anything worse: days of bicycling past acres of strong colours.

It would be the visual equivalent of eating, all alone, a large and very rich chocolate cake.

No, I think I would prefer to be riding a horse and come across this sprinkling of wild tulips on the steppes of southern Russia:

or this carpet of wild tulips in Asia Minor:

or this scattering of wild tulips in Iran:

or this bed of wild tulips in Crete:

or this achingly beautiful wild tulip in Cyprus:

I think it is clear by now to the reader that I prefer wild tulips by far. Apart from being integrated into their environment rather than regimented into artificial beds, I find their shape – coming up into a sharp, delicate point – so much more beautiful than the bulk of commercially available tulips. The artisans in Iznik, Turkey, also recognized the beauty of the tulip in their wonderful ceramics. These are ceramic tiles gracing the walls (or rather the pillars) of Rüstem Pasha Mosque in Istanbul:

The interior of this lovely little mosque is completely lined with ceramic tiles:

The tiles pick up on other flowers, leaving delicate arabesques on the walls:

Several years ago, during the business trip to New York which I mentioned in an earlier post, I stumbled across an exhibition in the Turkish Chamber of Commerce of modern ceramic plates using traditional Iznik designs. I fell for a plate, which looked something like this:

and bought it on the spot, cash. It sleeps with all our other stuff in a warehouse in Vienna, waiting to be brought back into the light of day and admired.

I always had the impression that tulips originally came from Asia Minor or thereabouts, but their range is much wider. Here is a wild tulip in a national park in Umbria, Italy

and here is one from southern Norway:

Lovely …

___________________________

Tulips in Beijing: my pix
Tulip fields in Netherlands-4: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dbs2i3jZ9t0/TbPwj_YIvJI/AAAAAAAAAVI/tMyaQ7M1x40/s1600/Holland%2Band%2BBelgium%2B202.JPG
Wild tulips- steppes of S. Russia: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/1920×1280/35533419.jpg
Wild tulips- Asia Minor: http://www.colorblends.com/img/display/kolpakowskiana.jpg
Wild tulips- Iran: http://icons-ak.wunderground.com/data/wximagenew/p/Photo1224/212-800.jpg
Wild tulips- Omalos, Crete: http://www.west-crete.com/dailypics/photos/1727large.jpg
Wild tulips- Cyprus: http://www.embargoed.org/images/gallery/preview/image_79_1.jpg
Iznik tiles Rustem Pasha mosque Istanbul-1: http://ericrossacademic.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/rustem-pasa-tile.jpg
Rustem Pasha mosque interior: http://sugraphic.com/images/fotolar/2011/08/02/46_1312263234..jpeg
Iznik tiles Rustem Pasha mosque Istanbul-2: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/DSC04139_Istanbul_-_R%C3%BCstem_Pasha_camii_-_Foto_G._Dall%27Orto_26-5-2006.jpg/800px-DSC04139_Istanbul_-_R%C3%BCstem_Pasha_camii_-_Foto_G._Dall%27Orto_26-5-2006.jpg
Ceramic plate Iznik style: http://yurdan.com/Content/Uploads/ProductImages/39637/iznik-design-ceramic-plate-tulip-and-carnation–1.jpg
Wild tulips – Umbria, Italy: http://farm1.staticflickr.com/62/185332054_d21bcbf611_z.jpg?zz=1
Wild tulips – Tananger coast, S. Norway: http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/16107947.jpg

DUST TO DUST, ASHES TO ASHES

Beijing, 4 February 2013

From time to time in Buddhist temples in this part of the world one sees a metal sculpture standing on altars, which takes the form of a stem of a lotus plant to which are attached a flower bud, a fully opened flower, and the seed pod from which the petals have fallen off; sometimes they are accompanied by a young leaf unrolling, a fully mature leaf, and an old leaf, ragged and torn. It is a visual allegory for the cycle to which we are all subject: birth – life – death. It is a gentler reminder of what I was harshly told every Ash Wednesday when I was a boy: “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return”.

I was reminded of this as the tulips – so lovely two posts ago – paled, wilted, and lost their petals, to finally leave the stamens standing naked and forlorn. I decided to record this decay down to death.

Friday morning:

Saturday morning:

Saturday evening:

Sunday morning:

Sunday evening:

I would like to think that my life currently stands at Saturday evening. Cold objectivity suggests instead that it stands at Sunday morning.

TULIPS AND MANDARINS

Beijing, 2 February 2013

The last week has been dreadful for air quality in Beijing. The brief break we had which I wrote about a few posts ago was but a temporary remission and we soon plunged back into the murk. My wife was a little more philosophical about it than I. She remarked that it reminded her of her childhood in Milan, when smog was frequent, and reminisced about having to cross the road to go to primary school and not being able to see if the light had changed. But still, we both suffered.

To cheer us up, my wife bought a bunch of tulips. They were still closed when she brought them home, but she placed them in a jar and we watched them slowly open over the following few days. Yesterday morning, we woke up to a gloriously bright and clear day. Thanking all the spirits I could think of, I stepped humming into the dining room, only to be greeted by the tulips which had fully opened over night. The sunlight pouring in through the windows was picking out their delicate pinks, whites and greens. I just had to memorialize the occasion.

The mandarins which were also on the table kept nudging themselves into the frame, so eventually, I brought them in too.

Wonderful, wonderful fruit, those! They don’t look up to much, but aah the taste, my friends! First comes the delicate mandarin aroma which breaks out as you begin to peel the fruit and prepares you for what lies ahead. Then comes the citrically acidic taste with sharp mandarin overtones which hits your taste buds as you pop one segment in after the other. They are completely addictive; between my wife and I, that plate of mandarins lasted but one breakfast. She has found a greengrocers up the road which sells them. Sorry, the address will remain a secret.