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The Documentary: Moving Pictures: A Flower Painting by Rachel Ruysch

A Flower Painting by Rachel Ruysch

12/10/2016 GMT

Moving Pictures

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Moving Pictures, A Flower Painting by Rachel Ruysch

A long, close look at what's hiding in the undergrowth of Ruysch's bold flower painting

A long, close look at what's hiding in the undergrowth of Rachel Ruysch's bold and beautiful flower painting

What's hiding in the undergrowth of Rachel Ruysch's bold and beautiful flower painting? Follow the link below to explore the picture and you'll be able to zoom in and see the tiniest details as you listen. This is a world where buds hiss like snakes, poppies twirl and tiny insects devour - a vibrant, fecund jungle, full of uncanny life.
 
Cathy FitzGerald hears how this great Dutch artist was influenced by her unusual childhood as the daughter of Frederik Ruysch, maker of one of the world's great curiosity cabinets. Frederik Ruysch's weird tableaux - created from human skeletons and embalmed bodies, insects and plants - were hugely popular in 17th Century Amsterdam and his young daughter Rachel was almost certainly involved in their creation. Is this what brings a touch of strangeness to her brilliantly observed vases and bouquets?
 
Cathy talks to art-experts, garden historians and artists - and asks why this brilliant painter - one of the most sought-after of her age - is so little known today.

(Picture: Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies, and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge by Rachel Ruysch, c.1680s, from the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Photograph by Google Arts and Culture)

The Documentary: Moving Pictures

Cathy FitzGerald invites you take some time to discover new details in an old masterpiece, using your phone, tablet or computer.

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