Tezos

Courting Gift

Creator

tz1e49f9DTcSsiNg3hxKnBUTod6FpJwFhzh3

Description

Chaenomeles speciosa Common name: Flowering Quince Chaenomeles blooms on bare wood. No leaves, no preparation, nothing to announce it. The branch looks dead, and then one morning it isn't. In Chinese tradition, this was a courting flower, part of a ritual described in the Book of Songs, the oldest collection of Chinese poetry that still exists. A girl gives three flowers to her lover, quince, peach, and plum, and he gives her three stones for her sash. The exchange is the point. The Greeks had a different take; they called the fruit a Cydonian apple and connected it to Aphrodite, the golden apple that Paris handed over and started a war with. Same plant, two completely different stories, one about tenderness and one about disaster. In Chinese culture, it means luck and long life, in Ikebana they cut branches just like this, with the buds still tight, and force them open indoors. The name comes from Greek too, chaino meaning to gape and melon meaning apple, because someone thought the fruit split open. It doesn't actually. They got the name wrong, and we kept it anyway. © Corina Daniela Obertas Photography. All rights reserved. The purchase of this NFT grants the collector ownership of the token only. Full copyright, reproduction rights, and commercial usage rights remain exclusively with the artist. No part of this artwork may be reproduced, distributed, printed, licensed, or used for commercial purposes without prior written consent from the artist.

Traits

Tag

quince

Tag

flowering

Tag