Human Flower Project

Friday, May 25, 2007

Floral Fireworks for a Russian Flag

Vienna’s best go all out to welcome Vladimir Putin.

Flowers seemed to explode above Russian President

Vladimir Putin (left) and Austrian President Heinz Fischer

at the Hofburg palace, Vienna, 5/23/07.

Photo: Dragan Tatic, for Reuters

What do you do when your biggest gasoline supplier comes to town? Polish the chandeliers and pull out the stops.

The Austrians welcomed Russian president Vladimir Putin this week, and from the looks of the floral arrangement prepared for Wednesday’s gala dinner at the Hofburg palace in Vienna, they aimed high. An immense floral display in the colors of Russia’s flag – white, blue and red – performed an act of diplomacy.

“Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom supplies most of Austria’s gas and seeks deeper access to distribution,” according to Reuters. But Austria has plans to build an alternate pipeline route, from the Caspian Sea “to southern Europe via Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece.” Since pipeline disputes can cause indigestion, the arrangement gave palace diners a six foot sigh of relief.

We’ve been looking for information about Austrian schools of floral design but thus far found very little. Several years ago, Leonard Koren, a graphic designer from the U.S., published a book called The Flower Shop (we’ll try to get our hands on this). It appears to be pseudo ethnography —examining the day to day affairs of one supremely tasteful florist in Vienna. Still, we’ve not found anything than can account for a piece like Wednesday’s “diplomat.” The arrangement takes marvelous advantage of an ambiguity in the Russian flag – which is the right blue? Russian flags, we learn, waffle “from Argentine blue to British blue.” Here, what appear to be delphiniums manage to please everyone, and add purple.

Bauergarten mit Sonnenblumen (1905-06)

Farm Garden with Sunflower

Gustav Klimt

Vienna, Osterreichische Museum für Angewandte Kunst

Even more impressive, though, are the scale and form. This arrangement somehow becomes one flower, like a fireworks display. And all that white gives it a kind of claustrophopia-inducing radiance, shades of countryman Gustav Klimt.

Who knows how well negotiations on the pipelines, or other affairs of state, went this week in Austria? Not us, but we congratulate the powerhouse florists of Wien (Vienna). Instead of killing them with kindness, humble them with honorifics. This arrangement manages at once to trumpet the president of Russia’s arrival and cut him down to size.