Poppies
Red Poppies or Poppies in a Field, 1880
Mary Cassatt
Oil on Panel
Permeant Collection at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, US
Focusing mostly on children and motherhood subjects, Mary Cassatt was one of the few 19th-century American women who became a professional artist. Cassatt had studied in the United States but spent most of her life in France. She was influenced by the artwork of Edgar Degas which lead her to become an influential Impressionist painter.
This painting, Red Poppies, was painted in France. Poppies are one of the most well-known ornamental flowers. They originally grew wild in eastern and southern Asia, and South Eastern Europe. It is believed that it originated in the Mediterranean region. Poppies are known now all over the world for their colors, symbols, and uses. Most poppies are found in the Northern Hemisphere, and several species of poppies are cultivated as garden ornamentals.
Papaver somniferum was domesticated by the indigenous people of Western and Central Europe between 6000 and 3500 BC. However, it is believed that its origins may come from the Sumerian people in the Middle East where the first use of opium was recognized. Poppies and opium became well known along the silk road and in early civilizations like Egypt.
Poppy cultivation came about in the early 1900s through international conferences due to safety concerns associated with the production of opium. In the 1970's the American war on drugs targeted Turkish production of the plant.
Many myths and symbols have been created around the Poppy flower such as a symbol of sleep, peace, and death, “Sleep because the opium extracted from them is a sedative, and death because of the common blood-red color of the red poppy in particular.” In Greek and Roman myths, poppies were used as offerings to the dead. Poppies used as emblems on graves to symbolize eternal sleep. This idea was brought to life in the classic children's novel and movie The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in which a magical poppy field threatened to make the protagonists sleep forever. A second interpretation of poppies in classical mythology is that the bright scarlet color signifies a promise of resurrection after death.
Poppy fields were all over Europe and this painting shows that no sleep was to come playing in a field of red poppies.