James Paterson takes inspiration from the Dutch masters to craft a towering flower arrangement

In 17th century Holland, a trend emerged for larger-thanlife still-life paintings of flowers. Galvanized by the fledgling disciplines of botany and horticulture at the time, Dutch artists like Jan Brueghel the Elder, Ambrosius Bosschaert and Roelandt Savery painted bulging bouquets brimming with allegory. Impossibly overblown arrangements full of tangling stems and masses of overlapping blooms were typical pieces of work for the time. These collections of luscious art would go on to influence both painting and flower arrangement for centuries to come.