Blue Flower
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Blue Flower (German: Blaue Blume) is a central symbol of Romanticism. It stands for desire, love, and the metaphysical striving for the infinite and unreachable.
Local blue-blooming flowers such as the Chicory or Cornflower are often seen as parallels to the "Blue Flower."[citation needed]
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[edit] Origins
German author Novalis first used the symbol in his unfinished novel of formation, entitled Heinrich von Ofterdingen. After contemplating a meeting with a stranger, the young Heinrich von Ofterdingen dreams about blue flowers which call to him and absorb his attention. (The Japanese translation of the novel was entitled aoi hana (青い花), literally "blue flower," emphasizing the motif.)
[edit] Use of the symbol
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff wrote a poem called "Die blaue Blume" (The blue flower). Adelbert von Chamisso saw the core of Romanticism in the motif, and Goethe searched for the "Urpflanze" or "original plant" in Italy, which in some interpretations could refer to the blue flower.
English writer Penelope Fitzgerald's historical novel 'The Blue Flower' is based on Novalis's early life.
In John Le Carré’s 1968 novel A Small Town in Germany, the character Bradfield says, “I used to think I was a Romantic, always looking for the blue flower.” (Pan edition, p. 286 – chap. 17)
Manga artist and author Takako Shimura's manga series "Aoi Hana" (English title "Sweet Blue Flowers") is about idealistic, Romantic-style affection between female high school students.
In the anime Blood+ the otherworldly blue flower is the symbol of evil Diva.
"Blue Flower" is the name of a song by the British avant-garde pop band of the early 1970s, Slapp Happy, later covered by the 1990's band Mazzy Star. "Blue Flowers" is a song by the alternative MC, Kool Keith (AKA Dr. Octagon), on his 1996 album, Dr. Octagonecologyst.
Substance D, a fictitious drug in Philip K. Dick's 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly, is derived from a plant with blue flowers.
[edit] Wandervogel movement
In 1960 Werner Helwig published the book "The Blue Flower of the Wandervogel" (Die blaue Blume des Wandervogels) a history of the youth movement. Within the movement, a number of folk songs used the motif.
[edit] The German student movement of the sixties
In Berlin in 1968, one slogan of the German student movement stated "Schlagt die Germanistik tot, färbt die blaue Blume rot!" ("Strike Germanistics dead, color the blue flower red!") The discipline of Germanistics was targeted as a sclerotic field, not suited to the needs of the people of the present.
[edit] Television, Film, and Theatre:
In the movie follow-up to David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks, entitled Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, two FBI agents are informed about their upcoming task through a woman named Lil. On her lapel is a tiny, artificial blue rose, clearly symbolic of something; but when Sam asks, Chet simply replies, "But I can't tell you about that."
In the 2005 feature film, Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne, in his quest to explore the criminal mind, travels the world prior to developing his crime-fighting personae and finds himself fighting for his meals in a Bhutan prison. Upon witnessing Bruce's tenacious fighting spirit, Ra's al Ghul, in the guise of Henri Ducard, secures his release. He tells Bruce that were he to collect a rare blue flower which grows on the eastern slopes of a mountain and bring it to the top, then he may there find what he is seeking. Upon reaching the summit with the flower, Bruce, under the tutelage of Ducard, begins his training to become a member of the League of Shadows. As part of his training to banish his inner fears Bruce is required to fight while under the debilitating influence of a fear intensifying hallucinogen. From a brazier, Bruce inhales smoke from one of the burning blue flowers. The drug effects his performance and, coupled with an unexpected release of bats into the room, Wayne is beaten by his own fear of them. The blue flower then becomes a key plot element when Ducard, with the assistance of Dr. Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow (comics)), in an effort to bring the balance of justice to Gotham City and destroy it, weaponize the toxic flower's organic compounds into a concentrated powder form and release it into the city's water supply. In the script, authored by David S. Goyer, the flower is described as a blue, double-bloomed poppy, but there is no mention of its specific variety in the film.
James and Ruth Bauer, husband and wife collaborative team, wrote an unconventional music theatre piece entitled The Blue Flower at the turn of the 21st century. Speaking through liberally fictionalized versions of artists Max Beckmann, Franz Marc, and Hannah Hoch as well as pivotal female scientific figure Marie Curie, the piece works elegantly and forcefully with the romantic significance of the blue flower as it meditates on the brutal political and cultural turmoil of World War I, the short lived Weimar Republic, and Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the Nazi Party. The narratives and characters are as significant allegorically as they are individually, and the music, lyrics, and accompanying artwork and videography are rich and complex as this play/concert/collage grapples with elements of the Dada movement, as well the hope, excitement, melancholy, and tragedy experienced by those who wanted to see the world smashed to pieces so that it could be reborn - one is obligated to recall Ezra Pound's (and accordingly Modernism's) call to action: "Make it new."
Produced at New York Music Theater Festival in 2004 and most recently by the Prospect Theater Company in February 2008, the piece has drawn flattering words from Broadway and Off-Broadway figures including Stephen Schwartz (Godspell (1971), Pippin (1972) and Wicked (2003)), Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis (both of Urinetown), as well as mixed reviews (some raving, some unimpressed) in the press. Matthew Murray of www.talkinbroadway.com provides a concise summation of such discussions in writing that "{The Blue Flower} exists on its own terms, whether you love it or hate it, and demands you do the same, making it a tight-fitting tribute to exactly the search for artistic perfection that the bloom of the title symbolizes."
[edit] References
- Werner Helwig: Die Blaue Blume des Wandervogels. Deutscher Spurbuchverlag, 1998. ISBN 3-88778-208-9
