Flowers [Paperback]

Robert Mapplethorpe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 20, 1993

The theme of flowers is woven throughout Robert Mapplethorpe's oeuvre, coming to signify some of his deepest concerns as an artist. The photographs in Flowers range from images of the early 1980's to many taken in the months just before his death.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Patti Smith's foreword, "A Final Flower," is a poetic tribute to the late photographer whose recent retrospective exhibition sparked a national legal debate over censorship in the arts. Smith's observation that Mapplethorpe embraced "the flower as the embodiment of all the contradictions reveling within," and in these photographs "found it was as easy to hurl beauty as anything else," enlarges this work in a meaningful way. The 50 color photographs of flowers taken over the past decade "by one who caused a modern shudder" are surprisingly conventional yet uniquely striking in their composition and lighting; Smith attributes their power to Mapplethorpe's "unflinching perception of the color, form and personality of the flower." The book's simple and sublime presentation--each opening a full-page plate facing a blank--serves to remind us that Mapplethorpe was a masterful photographer, not just an iconoclast.
- Ann Copeland, Champaign, Ill.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Robert Mapplethorpe was one of the most important figures in contemporary photography. Brilliant, daring, and supremely accomplished, he will be remembered for the classical harmonies, controversial subject matter, and luminous vision that marked his photographs. He died in 1989. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 108 pages
• Publisher: Bulfinch (May 20, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821220195
• ISBN-13: 978-0821220191
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 0.4 x 12 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,154,502 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perpetual Spring Provides Creative Inspiration!, April 14, 2001

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Flowers (Paperback)

This book deserves more than five stars. It is the finest set of flower photography that I have seen before, and presents more dimensions of what a flower can mean that I would have thought possible.

I took a course of creativity from author Dan Wakefield a number of years ago. One of the many excellent exercises we did was to take a flower and write as much as we could about what we observed during an hour. At the end of the time, I was bursting with new ideas for all kinds of things. Try it sometime!

Seeing this marvelous book by Robert Mapplethorpe (that would earn a G rating if it were a motion picture) reminded me of that exercise. I had the same feeling as I examined each image, and had a great desire to start taking notes.

The essay, A Final Flower, by Patti Smith helps put these great works in perspective. Mr. Mapplethorpe found it "as easy to hurl beauty as anything else." "He came, in time, to embrace the flower as the embodiment of all the contradictions reveling within [him]." He was inspired by "their sleekness, their fullness, Humble narcissus, Passionate zen." As such, he found flowers to be "worthy conspirators in the courting and development of conflicting emotions."

The images themselves evoke more complicated views than any others of flowers that I have seen. The closest to his style is that which Georgia O'Keeffe used in her painings. But there are more dimensions to these photographs.

For example, a single flower may evoke a part of a human body, but it will also stimulate an impression of a human emotion contained in the flower image separate from the body part. Further, the shadowed background behind the flower will add movement and context that greatly expand the meaning of the overall image. Mr. Mapplethorpe also displays a genius for using varieties of color together to express complicated rhythms that make looking at the images a lot like listening to a drum beating a distinctive tattoo. He also employs juxtaposition (to make one thing appear to be part of something else), allusions to emerging and receding, and contrasts to great effect.

The technical quality of the images is superb. The lighting, detail, and composition of each image are precisely as must have been intended. Each image is an exquisite gem. Although I liked all of the images, some appealed to me more than others. Here are my favorites:

Irises, 1988; Rose, 1989; Orchid, 1977; White Longstem Flower, 1982; Orchids, 1982; Orchid, 1986; Flowers in a Vase, 1985; Orchids, 1987; and Poppy, 1988 (second one). I would like to specially praise the astonishing Calla Lilies (1985-1988) for their amazing beauty and inspiring qualities.

Where else can something simple display so much important meaning and complexity about nature and the viewer? I suggest that you consider looking at leaves, rocks, and feathers as possible additional sources of inspiration. Try your hand at arranging tableaux that use the vocabulary of Mr. Mapplethorpe's work here.

May your heart and mind be suffused with the wonders around you . . . creating a meditation inspired by nature!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, February 3, 2002

By 

Stephen McHenry (Olney, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flowers (Paperback)

Unbelivable intensity out of such simplicity. Here is Mapplethorpe's ultimate genius, astoundingly powerful from such simple set-ups. The colour, composition, lighting, choice of vases and flowers: All the basics but brilliantly done.
I saw Mapplethorpe's famous exhibition in Philadelphia just before he died,the exhibit that was banned at the Corcoran in D.C., then siezed for a while in Cincinnati. The flower photographs were dye-transfer prints, which made the colour surprisingly intense; some were almost 3' tall. People would stand for a long time in front of those, enraptured, sensing the work on several different levels at once. This book does a good job of bringing that to you. You can look at this book over and over again, put in on a coffe table to start converstaions or, after having not seen it for a while, rediscover it to be awed and inspired anew once again.
The edition I have is a 1990 paperback 12" in height; the pictures are presented one to a spread, so that there is a blank white page accross from the flower, which is a very classy touch, completely the correct way to do it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flowers as themselves and other worldly things, July 12, 2000

By 

Timothy J Good - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flowers (Paperback)

This is a book of pictures that are technically breathtaking as photographs and emotionally moving as pictures. The images evoke deep feelings but whether the artist's feelings in making them are the same as mine in viewing them, I cannot tell. They are far too subtle for that.

These are photographs of flowers. As photographs, they are amazing. But the real worth of the collection is that the pictures he created are of other worldly things.

I have lots of books of photographs and of paintings, too. I have none that I think exceeds Mapplethorpe's achievements here.