Benable — create shareable lists of things you recommend!
E.g., products you love, local businesses, travel recs - you can add anything to a Benable list!
Eternally Vernal: Representations of Spring in Art & Design
25
items Throughout human existence Spring has inspired artists to create mesmerizing works detailing the arrival of the season in its natural beauty. For creatives from Ancient to Renaissance eras, from Impressionists to Contemporary artists the subject matt...
This large floor mosaic (89" H x 99" W) is from ancient Rome circa 2nd century ce, it was found in an olive grove that was a popular vacation destination for wealthy ancients. I used to see this mosaic often at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I w...
Mosaic floor panel | Roman | Imperial | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
"Primavera" or "The Allegory of Spring" by Sandro Botticelli was painted between the late 1470's & early 1480's. While it is an immensely popular piece of art, it is also considered extremely controversial due to its lack of clarity in meaning. P...
Sandro Botticelli - Primavera, The Allegory of Spring (Late 1470's - Early 1480's)
2
Maria van Oosterwijck (Dutch, 1630-1693) was a female painter and business woman during a time when it was rare for women to be professional artists. She devoted her life to her art and made many beautiful flower still life's such as this one from 16...
Maria van Oosterwijck - Flower Still Life (1669)
German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich focused on contemplative figures in natural settings to evoke deep feeling and philosophical thought from his art. This quiet scene, Easter Morning (1828-1835), pictures three figures traveling a road pe...
Caspar David Friedrich - Easter Morning (1828-1835)
As an Impressionist painter Claude Monet was very skilled in capturing specific color, lighting and fleeting moments of nature in his work. The essences of seasons are presented in his work such as in this piece, Spring (Fruit Trees in Bloom), 1873. ...
Claude Monet - Spring (Fruit Trees in Bloom) (1873)
I used to walk past this painting at work every day and appreciated the dose of warm spring light throughout the seasons. Springtime by Pierre August Cot is the artist's most popular work alongside the successive work it inspired -The Storm (see 2nd ...
Pierre Auguste Cot - Springtime (1873)
William Morris (1834-1896) was a multi- talented individual best known for his intricate and colorful textile designs. He created a series of rabbit illustrations that show lovely send of peaceful rabbits in lush green spring foliage.
Rabbit Couple - William Morris
This 81" tall plaster model is William Couper's personification of Spring which was created for Tiffany & Co in New York. It was exhibited in London & Paris in 1885 and at Tiffany & Co in New York in 1886.
William Couper - The Coming of Spring (Early 1880's)
American glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848 -1933) created numerous art nouveau style pieces that remind one of Spring. Particularly the Spring panel of a group of four representing each season, however I prefer his other designs. Wisteria whic...
"Wisteria" Table Lamp (1901) | Tiffany Studios | Sotheby's
Odilon Redon was a Symbolist painter who created this piece, Butterflies, in 1910. He used these delicate subjects in many of his artworks along with flowers and shells to create a dreamlike sense of wonder in his art. Butterflies, symbols of spring,...
Butterflies - Odilon Redon (1910)
Clarence Coles Phillips was an early 20th century American illustrator known for his "Fadeaway Girls". As can be seen in this 1912 image "Tulips in the Garden" a gardener blends into the background of the scene emphasizing the details around her form...
Clarence Coles Phillips - Tulips In The Garden (1910)
“I will try,” she wrote, “to grasp the flowers of the earth.” This quote from Hilda af Klint describes her artistic goal during the year 1919 through 1920. Though Klint is mainly known for her spiritual abstract works she also compiled a series of wa...
Hilma af Klint. Tulipa sp. (Tulip). Sheet 35 from the portfolio Nature Studies. May 20, 1920 | MoMA
The First Days of Spring (1929) by Salvador Dali was created during a particularly stressful period during the Surrealist's life. The change of seasons is not always welcomed for some and can be a difficult time of transition. Sometimes personal desi...
Salvador Dalí, The First Days of Spring (1929)
Hasui Kawase was a prolific Japanese printmaker who created around 620 woodblock prints in the course of his career. All of his work from before the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake including his finished woodblock prints as well as 188 of his sketchbooks...
Hasui Kawase - Spring Moon at Ninomiya Beach (1935)
During the 1930's car trips were becoming popularized and National Parks began to develop publications to encourage visitors. Ansel Adams became well known for his work as a landscape photographer during this period, developing his style and document...
The Four Seasons in Yosemite National Park (1938), “Spring,” by Ansel Adams
This large painting Spring, 1948 by artist Georgia O' Keeffe measures 48 1/4" x 84 1/4". It remained in O'Keeffe's personal collection until she passed away in 1986. It sustained damage from a roof leak caused by a tarantula that had burrowed through...
Georgia O'Keeffe - Spring, 1948
Charley Harper is a mid century artist who made many illustrations of birds, flowers and wildlife in a very recognizable style that influenced the zeitgeist. This piece, Spring Wildflowers was created in 1968. A description of the scene from the arti...
–Charley Harper
–Charley Harper
Charley Harper - Spring Wildflowers (1968)
Included in her Silhuetas Series (1973-1978) is Ana Mendieta's Flowers on Body (1973). A provocative performance piece centered around the concepts of regeneration and return to the earth while giving new life. As the artist combines her form combine...
Ana Mendieta - Flowers on Body (1973) (Silueta series)
If you want to say Andy Goldsworthy is a landscape artist it is because he uses the landscape itself as his medium. Goldsworthy is known for his arrangements of leaves, rocks and flowers in their natural settings to create images and thoughtful insta...
Andy Goldsworthy (b.1956) - Dandelions and Hole
"Spring" by Yoshida Toshi, ca 1980 is a traditional Japanese woodblock print from the artist's series The Birds of the Seasons. It pictures two sparrows "Flying Around the the Plum Tree" and represents the season of rebirth welcomed in by vibrant co...
Yoshida Toshi - "Spring" from the Series Birds of the Four Seasons (ca. 1980)
Rabbits and Springtime are an inseparable combination, especially when it comes to Easter. Jeff Koons' sculpture Rabbit (1986) is a stainless steel interpretation of popular inflatable 1980's Easter rabbit decorations. Swipe to see an example of the ...
JEFF KOONS - 'Rabbit' (1986)
A gorgeous photograph portrait of young girls lounging in nature in springtime by contemporary artist Carrie Mae Weems May Flowers (2002) appears as though it could be current to various eras of the 20th or 21st centuries. The popular subject matter ...
Carrie Mae Weems - May Flowers (2002)
David Hockney's 2011 digital series The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate depicts the natural beauty of his native area in Yorkshire, England in the energizing colors that uplift the season. Hockney was commissioned by the Royal Academy in London to crea...
David Hockney - The Arrival Of Spring in 2011
"Bittersweet Spring" (2022) is my own artwork. It portrays the emotional return of the mythological goddess Persephone, the embodiment of Spring and the cycle of regeneration. Persephone is the wife of Hades, God of the Underworld, and she must remai...
Hila Goddard (Enodia Evenfall) - Bittersweet Spring (2022)
Takashi Murakami's print Maiko in Springtime in Kyoto, 2024 has a contemporary style familiar to anime and Japanese culture. The vibrant green and gold colors, cherry blossom motifs, and main figure of a Maiko, or geisha, with floral kimono & acc...
Takashi Murakami, Kaikai Kiki | Maiko in Springtime Kyoto (2024)