Easter Lily 1945

Florence V. Cannon made this print of an easter lily, but when exactly, we don’t know. The shapes of the leaves and petals are simplified and bold, a sort of distillation, and that tells me she was interested in the basic idea of a lily, not really its actual representation. I like how solid the colors are – blue, green, and white – they sit right on the surface of the paper, each locked in its own zone. Look at the way the background blue comes right up to the edges of the flowers and leaves, almost like a jigsaw. It’s so flat, it’s almost abstract! But there’s also a softness to the image in the edges of the forms that suggests she printed it by hand, and there’s a sort of human element that makes it feel special and warm. This piece puts me in mind of other printmakers who explored flat forms in nature like Hiroshige. It really is wonderful to see how artists build on each other’s ideas to create new ways of seeing the world.