Discussion

From a painting by Georgia O'Keefe (1939). See discussion.

Birds of Paradise

This week's painting subject is bird-of-paradise, but without more information, it is easy to mistake the subject for the wrong bird-of-paradise.

The first things many people think of when bird-of-paradise comes up are the flying types mostly native to eastern Indonesia, Paupa New Guinea, and eastern Australia. There are 42 known species of these colorful birds in 15 genera, a few of which are depicted here. As is often the case with birds, males are the colorful ones.

Red bird-of-paradise (Paradisaea rubra):

Lesser bird-of-paradise, also known locally as Cendrawasih.

Blue bird-of-paradise.

No, the bird-of-paradise we are concerned with is a plant. But it isn't the Lobster Claw flower, native to Central and South America, that is sometimes known as the false bird-of-paradise.

Gokurakuchō

There is no ambiguity in Japan over what is meant by bird-of-paradise when using the Japanese word for the plant, gokurakuchō.

There are five species of bird-of-paradise plants, all native to southern Africa. The best known of them, shown above, is Strelitzia reginae, otherwise known as the crane flower or crane lily. An evergreen perennial, it gets its name from the resemblance of the open flower to the head and beak of exotic birds; i.e. the birds of paradise shown at the beginning of this unit.

The specialized leaf out of which the colorful parts of the flower are coming is the sepal. The gold parts are tepals (or petals), and the bluish organs are the stigma where the pollen germinates. The stigma are also where birds drink nectar and incidentally become pollinators by coming in contact with pollen, which is then transferred to other flowers. There are no insect pollinators of bird-of-paradise plants. In areas where the right kind of birds don't exist, hand pollination is required.

A variation of S. reginae with yellow tepals is known as 'Mandela's Gold' after the famous South African leader. It requires two yellow "genes" to produce the yellow color; gold is the result otherwise. Through careful breeding, horticulturists have managed to come up with pure strains of Mandela's Gold.

Among the other bird-of-paradise species is the Giant bird-of-paradise (S. nicolai) which has white flowers.

In floriography (the language of flowers), the bird-of-paradise represents faithfulness, love, and thoughtfulness.

Artwork

Ikebana

There are several schools (styles) of ikebana (the Japanese art of flower arranging), by far the oldest of which is ikenobo. The word literally means "hut (bo) of or by (no) a pond (ike)". This referred to a part of the Rokkaku-dō Temple complex in Kyoto (its official name is Chōhō-ji), founded about 1400 years ago, where priests lived who made floral offerings in honor of the dead. By around 900 AD, flower arranging had developed into a recognized art form with a distinct set of rules. It would be centuries before another school of ikebana with its own rules would be developed.

The bird-of-paradise ikenobo below isn't ideal, but it gives an idea.

Other Art

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find classical Japanese paintings of bird-of-paradise plants. This may be due to their not having been seen in Japan until recent times. Japanese artists have a long history of painting birds, however. Recall that the original birds of paradise were the feathered variety.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 - 1858)

The title of the ukiyo-e painting below is Long-Tailed Bird. It's date of production is unknown. I also don't know what kind of bird this is, but it bares a close enough resemblance to birds of paradise to include it here.

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887 - 1886)

O'Keeffe was an American modernist artist who, among many other things, is known for her sensual close-up paintings of flowers, especially lilies. There is one of them in the San Diego Museum of Art. One of her most productive periods was while in Hawaii in 1939 on commission from the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now Dole Food Company). This bird-of-paradise was painted then.