L’esthetique des fleurs

Flowers and florals on Attic vases are usually neglected in scholarship and that because they are considered as meaningless, superfluous ornaments which in the best case, can serve to chronological and typological classifications. The purpose of my book is to show that flowers and florals, far from being mere ornaments, have a very meaningful existence: when represented in interaction with figures, they operate as figurative agents and polyvalent signs. Source of multisensory delight, they convey a reservoir of values linked to the notions of kosmos (adornment, order, arrangement), of poikilia (variety, diversity), and that of kharis in its declinations personified by the Kharites, Aglaia (physical beauty, youth, radiance), Thalia (abundance, generosity, favour and gift) and Euphrosyne (jubilation and pleasure of the senses). In other words, flowers and florals, however minor and peripheral they may seem, help us to better apprehend the archaic and classical Athenian society. They also show us how fictitious are our modern categories of “figure” and “ornament”, when used in the case of Attic vases.