A Flower Interpretation of Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I'm Harriet Parry and I'm a floral stylist and artist from London. I use flowers as my medium, just like a painter would use paint. My work often references contemporary and historical art, fashion and film. I've chosen to interpret Lady Lilith by Rossetti and in this painting Lilith, a very well-known femme fatale, is reimagined as a very sort of self-absorbed 19th century beauty. For each interpretation I ask myself what flowers and foliage symbolise, represent or resonate with the image. So I've come back to where I grew up in Worcestershire and I'm going to come and look for some garden flowers because the Pre-Raphaelites loved to use beautiful English garden flowers in their paintings so I thought it was very appropriate to come and cut some British-grown flowers from the garden. It's just starting pouring with rain so I'm getting pretty damp but I've got all of these beauties so this is going to be great for the mass of roses behind Lilith. Lady Lilith is perfect to represent at this time of the year because roses, foxgloves and poppies are all in season. Now to create a flower interpretation I first start by building my set so I have to think about the layers in the painting and the depth so therefore I have to create a structure that I can arrange on. She's got very voluptuous bosoms. Look, they're perfect. I've actually already got the shape. Once all the vessels and all the props and all the fabric is in place I'll then start to add my flowers. Sometimes like creases of fabrics make me feel a bit weird. Like that for me. Just kind of the way we go with it. The preserved Amaranthus works brilliantly for Lilith's hair because it has this beautiful natural drapey flow so you can really create that movement. Now in the painting Rossetti has used flower symbolism to speak of underlying messages that viewers may pick up. White roses represent cold but sensuous love and there's a foxglove to the left on the dressing table which could represent insincerity. I thought these would work really well for Lady Lilith's dress because if you look closely she almost has like a feathery trim. My final finishing touch to my flower interpretation is actually Lilith's lips and I used a tiny delicate red petal.