I don't know if you've noticed this but in the past few years your local bookstore has been
turning into Kew Gardens because everything has flowers... but why?
Hi it's Divya G. What does the g stand for? The g stands for i was Going to Waterstones,
I was trying to find inspiration for my next video and then i was like shi- I should have bought my
hay fever tablets. Why? Because there was damn flowers everywhere. Historical fiction like
Violetta. Essex blooms. They were blossoming in fantasy fiction. Contemporary fiction that centers
around women. Feminism non-fiction: What Would Boudica Do? I saw them framing tales of survival
and war. It was a on poetry. To be honest like this was just a book about nature poems anyway.
I saw them in children's books as well, like, my main girl Jackie Wilson she's- she's still going.
And even young adults Raybearer has been given a green makeover... it's climate change innit.
You might be thinking like whoa Divya like are you applying to be uh fbi? You're surely
gonna pass that interview after pointing out that there's flowers on book covers(!)
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and it's in my description below. Floral imagery is not unique. You can find it in the world's
greatest series of all time: Twilight and subsequently a lot of other y a fantasy
novels after that point. So The Group by Mary Mccarthy's 1960 cover also adopts a flower motif
for the cover to represent the eight women. Here's a 10th century gospel book made from
ivory panels with vines and foliage. But i don't believe that we've had flowers on covers to the
extent and the style that we have now. But why are there so many flowers? We love a good plant
we do... an industry plant, an actual plant- Humans have been cultivating plants and foliage
and flowers for thousands of years whether as a symbol for indicating you know available food,
fragrance to absolutely obliterate your own body smell and douse yourself in,
as symbols of remembrance, for medicine, to make loved ones smile, as important symbols of protest,
or making crap overpriced food feel justified, for livening up your home, and the most poignant use
of flowers have been in 2013 stan culture tumblr aesthetic. Like art imitates life,
throughout time we see how floral natural imagery is used within literature and art.
My guy Narcissus. The story of Narcissus is badly told and inaccurately revised by me:
Divya G. Basically, there's a good-looking guy Narcissus and his mom goes and talks to i don't
know some priest or something. The priest is doing some astrology mapping stuff and they're like oh
Narcissus? Yeah he's gonna live a long life. Yeah yeah no worries except like he shouldn't ever be
able to recognize his own self. Some plot happens. Narcissus ends up near some lake looks into the
lake um and then he falls in love with his own face because he really took self-love to like
just another level. He loves himself so much that he just withers away and he dies and then a flower
is born and that's Narcissus. I think, just like the story, one of the reasons why you have
a lot of flowers is because they have and hold a symbolic meaning. You see flowers in horror books
used effectively to create something that looks a little bit more unnatural, unnerving, death and
decay. I think flowers are great they can either be used to show like the fleeting-ness of human
life or conversely add a bit of energy. Definitely dawning the covers of literature books that have a
focus on women and therefore the floral symbolism can be used effectively to express femininity
and cooch- If you have a cover that's like a super literal representation of something it can be kind
of bland so Ii think flowers are a good scapegoat for not having someone's face on a cover like no
one wants to see that. Flowers as a symbol of a beauty has this like huge relevance in a lot of
the novels that touch upon you know "what does it mean to be beautiful" as a theme. The renaissance.
The renaissance had a preoccupation with feeling with nature and we see a lot of still life
paintings as a result of that. A lot of rich and bold bouquets. Impressionism. So here
Degas captures a moment in time in his "a woman seated beside a vase of flowers" painting. Flowers
dominates the painting claiming the most space and demands a presence before your eyes kind of like
drift to see the woman. She's unfocused. She's like my girl's not present she's like pondering
to something outside of the frame. The color is rich and it contrasts the dull muted browns
of her attire and i think the composition is interesting because it almost pushes the
woman away from the focus. You can also argue that there's a strange harmony and balance of
woman with nature. Austin. Foliage and gardens in Austin's novel set important backdrops for either
satirizing this obsession with the picturesque cult or they're used as places of respite or
even places for love. So obviously because of this i think it makes sense to have flowers on
the cover if nature is a part of your story. But another question is is this all marketing?
If you've seen basically any of my other cover videos you'll know that the answer is always
yes. Flowers have this eye pleasing symmetry that makes parts of our brain go yum yum!
Scientifically backed and peer reviewed research by me. And flowers have like been scientifically
proven to uplift moods and spirits so it's like got depression? Drink water and look at some
pretty flowers. Is it also possible that they just put flowers on the cover for literally no reason?
Yes! Um if anything one of the reasons will be like well this worked on like another best-selling
book so let's just do it again ultimately like you want a book to sell right so if you do something
completely off-brand, completely out of genre the reader might not know where to place it. What is
your cover communicating to me about what your book is about? About what genre is it? And if
i can recognize something that think ah this looks like another thing that i really liked
i'm gonna buy it am i not? I also think like in certain areas of design do i have iron deficiency
because i am just getting tired.. of minimalism. In interior design and this lovely unseasoned drab
lifeless slab of black and white and gray right i feel like we've really come to embrace more
personality. We really value sort of the eclectic character and i feel like this is also reflected
in book covers as well we see a lot of patterns, rich bold decorative like maximalist covers are
really fighting for their lives. They're fighting for attention. Minimalist covers can be done well
but it can so easily tread this line of just like you're dry. This is just my opinion overview,
inside very quick of why i think we've seen a lot of floral patterns kind of dominate
across various genres in book design recently. I'd love to hear if you have like you know a
little nugget of art history information if you've also noticed this and or any other design trends
that you'd like to discuss with me. Thank you so much for supporting me and support my channel
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