MOMENTS IN POT CULTURE: THE SUNFLOWER

Words by Jessica Peace

WILLIAM BLAKE’S TAKE

‘Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,/ ...Seeking after that sweet golden clime…’ reflects Blake, the double threat artist and writer in his illustrated collection, ‘Songs of experience’ way back in 1794’.

GUSTAV KLIMT’S  GLITZY ONES

Klimt’s tall melancholy figure with a bowed head,‘The Sunflower’ (1907), was presented at the same exhibition of his famous snogging couple at Art Show Vienna in 1908.

THE BEAT POET’S SUTRA

In ‘Sunflower Sutra’ (1955), Allen Ginsberg thinks of Blake when his mate Jack Kerouac spots a sunflower, ‘...Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then!’

90’S NOSTALGIA

Are you old enough to remember wearing your sunflower dress (...and floppy hat with a thick black choker) in the 90’s? Or are you wearing one now with a sense of irony and calling it vintage?