Life & Death of Lilacs (Part III)
I received a bunch of brilliantly purple lilacs this afternoon, an official sign of spring, some flowers already open releasing their strong floral scent, the rest simply red-purple buds waiting their turn. I inhaled deeply and within a few hours the leaves began to wilt and the blossoms dipped with thirst. They sit now, revived in a vase for the next couple of weeks at least, on my desk.
Here, lilacs, or syringa vulgaris, bloom only for a few weeks; its signal comparable to that of the cherry blossom, a reminder of spring, and a moment to cherish. The flowers are reddish purple but there are forms with darker red, nearly white, and even blue flowers. There are more than two hundred of these named varieties of syringa vulgaris now in cultivation.
The lilac also blooms in various ways in Western history; taking innocence, mourning, and life itself through its multifarious visual forms; studied in this three part series.
Layers of Death
While lilacs are among the first to bloom, their flowers are short-lived. The heady fragrance lingers sweetly, but, as the blooms start to die, they turn to a heavy, cloying smell. Lilacs contain a natural compound, called indole, that’s found in flowers…and feces. It’s that undercurrent of the “bottom note” of fragrance that suggests decay and death.
Lilac trees can last for over 100 years, out-living the gardener who planted them. Drive along a country road and you may notice some seemingly-random lilac bushes, a witness to relics of a forgotten home that likely stood a century ago.
Introduced to the United States in the 18th century by way of Eastern Europe and Persia, lilacs grew in past presidential gardens. You might not know the lilac was also one of the most common trees encountered in old cemeteries. You can assume the sweetly-scented flowers were used to surround the dead while they lay in state, to mask the odor of decaying flesh. Take note of the landscape cemeteries and mourning culture of the American antebellum. Acres of nature surround death as Victorian life walked amongst these thoughtfully designed burial grounds. Romanticism persists in 19th century visual culture as lilac and flora surround, often elaborately carved, crypts ensuring the privacy of the graves and the survivors’ mourning. By the 1870s virtually every city in North America advertised a new “rural cemetery,” thus introducing a new tradition into Western mourning.
Victorian mourning culture was more than just etiquette and general behavior, it was an expensive cultural custom. Reflected in the expenditures of the fast-climbing middle class, one bereavement required the building of an entirely new wardrobe, indicating what mattered at the time and how to keep up with the wealthy in terms of status. The mourning wardrobe was the outward display of inner sorrow, in a time where emotional-hysteria was a social taboo and one had to find other means of displaying internal turmoil. The process applied most strongly to women and the length of time she wore mourning clothes would depend on how close of a relation she was mourning.
“**The purple substance – initially named aniline purple – was one of the world’s first synthetic dyes: mauveine. William Henry Perkin was the first person to mass produce a synthetic dye and mauvine’s significance as a dye is its elusive color. ”
Black, of course, was worn or used to symbolize a recent death in most European and North American cultures. Yet after a year or two of mourning, key mourners such as the widow, could signify their gradual recovery by introducing purple (lilac). This period of second mourning introduced lilac to a collar, gloves or trimmings, symbolized the return of the mourner to a more active life.
Since purple was the height of fashion in Paris, London, and the U.S. in the late 1850s to early 1860s, purple** became a transition shade for this measured convalescence. Throughout history, purple clothes have been worn almost exclusively by the richest in society due to the expense of creating purple dyes. Not to confuse the article and dive into the history of royal purples, violet and bluer hues, but, Perkin’s mauve took a luxury color to mass production. Purple dyes of all shades then swept across clothing, accessories, and everyday objects.
In the language of flora and color, lilacs signify life, love and remembrance from reviving your personal space to Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in Dooryard Bloom’d.” This three part series ends as my flowers wilt and we accept the end of the lilac cycle in Philadelphia.