Les Douze Mois de l'Année: Floréal 1919

Marthe Romme's "Floréal" presents us with a figure draped in floral garlands, emblems of renewal and the spring month they represent. This echoes ancient rituals, like the Roman Floralia, celebrating nature's rebirth. The floral motif isn't confined to antiquity; it resurfaces through the ages, adorning Botticelli's Primavera, signifying fertility, but here, we find a subtle melancholia. The inscription, hinting at lost woods and cut laurels, suggests a severance from nature. This resonates with the collective anxieties of modernity, the yearning for a lost Eden, a sentiment mirrored in the works of artists like Gauguin, who sought solace in the primitive. The garland, a symbol of cyclical time, evokes the eternal return, a concept haunting our collective memory. Yet, here, the cut laurels introduce a discordant note, a break in the cycle, prompting a subconscious unease. "Floréal" becomes a poignant reflection on our fractured relationship with the natural world.