The Tulip Anthology

Book excerpt: No flower incites passion and fervour quite like the tulip. Revered, cultivated and coveted for more than a thousand years, the tulip is at once historically significant and disarmingly modern. THE TULIP ANTHOLOGY brings its history and enduring power into sharp focus, marrying celebrated photographer Ron van Dongen s exquisite contemporary studies of the Tulipa genus with the words and artworks it has inspired over the last millennium. From eleventh-century poetry, through the Dutch Masters of the early sixteen hundreds, to twenty-first century photographs, it demonstrates our entanglement with a flower that has the capacity to enchant, inspire and even lead men to their ruin.