The Book of the Peony

It's easy to be inspired by the naturally-sculptural shape of flowers; for me, my favorite flower is the peony and one of the aspects I love most about this variety is the full shape of the bloom that practically defies gravity. Each stem is like a tiny piece of art from the garden.

Published in 1917, Alice Howard Harding's book The Book of the Peony captures the organic beauty of my favorite flower in a series color and black-and-white photographs that deserve to be framed like art and once you see these images, I think you'll agree.

I'd love to see these images printed and framed à la those Irving Penn photographs I've written about here before. These images are in the public domain, so they can be printed without worry of copyright infringement. A PDF of the book (with many more pictures) can be download here.

(all via The Book of the Peony)

They'd be very cool blown up and printed in black-and-white, even if the result is a little fuzzy, wouldn't they? Here are some examples of great exaggerated flower photographs:

(via Lonny)

(a room designed by Katie Leede via Houzz)

Like the idea of keeping the images small and grouped? It worked for Lee Radizwell:

(via T Magazine/NY Times)

Even though we're a few months away from peonies blooming in our gardens, at least we can enjoy them in perpetual bloom on our walls.