RON HENGGELER

June 9, 2023
Snapped shot impressions of the Bouquets to Art

at the de Young Museum 

I recently visited the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park to see Bouquets to Art. It's a popular annual floral celebration that is now in its 39th year. Even at 10:30am when I arrived, the museum was already bustling with visitors. A curator and friend at the museum emailed me saying that visitors to this event have returned to the pre-pandemic numbers. People are so glad to get out. 

Over 100 leading floral designers returned to the galleries to showcase innovative botanical arrangements inspired by museum masterworks. Here are some of my photos of their creations.

Good composition is merely the strongest way of seeing.

Edward Weston

You are the universe experiencing itself.

Alan Watts

Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the various elements which the painter uses to express his sentiments. In a picture every separate part will be visible and... everything which has no utility in the picture is for that reason harmful.

Henri Matisse

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.

Luther Burbank

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.

Luther Burbank

Flowers are the music of the ground. From earth’s lips spoken without sound. 

Edwin Curran

One compositional element suggests and asks for another. This is what makes the activity interesting.

Robert Genn

A composition is an arrangement, built out of parts, that aims at seamlessness.

Eric Maisel

Flowers whisper ‘Beauty!’ to the world, even as they fade, wilt, fall. 

Dr. SunWolf

Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning.

Lydia M. Child

Composition is frozen improvisation.

Igor Stranvisky

Even in front of nature one must compose.

Edgar Degas

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly our whole life would change.

Buddha

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly our whole life would change.

Buddha

The beauty of flowers is forever captured in the way floral designers make them a part of our life’s memories.

Idalina Bertone