Blue flower

A deep blue flower approaches the otherworldliness of the motif.

The Blue Flower (German: Blaue Blume) is a central symbol of Romanticism. It stands for desire, love, and the metaphysical striving for the infinite and unreachable.

Local blue-blooming flowers such as the Chicory or Cornflower are often seen as parallels to the "blue flower."

Origins

German author Novalis first used the symbol in his unfinished novel of formation, entitled Heinrich von Ofterdingen. After contemplating a meeting with a stranger, the young Heinrich von Ofterdingen dreams about blue flowers which call to him and absorb his attention. (The Japanese translation of the novel was entitled Aoi Hana (青い花), literally "blue flower," emphasizing the motif.)

Use of the symbol

Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff wrote a poem called Die blaue Blume (The blue flower). Adelbert von Chamisso saw the core of Romanticism in the motif, and Goethe searched for the "Urpflanze" or "original plant" in Italy, which in some interpretations could refer to the blue flower.

English writer Penelope Fitzgerald's historical novel The Blue Flower is based on Novalis's early life. In John Le Carré’s 1968 novel A Small Town in Germany, the character Bradfield says, "I used to think I was a Romantic, always looking for the blue flower." (Pan edition, p. 286 – chap. 17) Substance D, a fictitious drug in Philip K. Dick's 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly, is derived from a plant with blue flowers.

Manga artist and author Takako Shimura's manga series Aoi Hana (English title "Sweet Blue Flowers") is about idealistic, Romantic-style affection between female high school students. In the anime Blood+ the otherworldly blue flower is the symbol of evil Diva.

"Blue Flower" is the name of a song by the British avant-garde pop band of the early 1970s, Slapp Happy, later covered by the 1990s indy rock bands Pale Saints and Mazzy Star. "Blue Flowers" is a song by the alternative MC, Kool Keith (AKA Dr. Octagon), on his 1996 album, Dr. Octagonecologyst.

Wandervogel movement

In 1960 Werner Helwig published the book The Blue Flower of the Wandervogel (Die blaue Blume des Wandervogels) a history of the youth movement. Within the movement, a number of folk songs used the motif.

The German student movement of the 60's

In Berlin in 1968, one slogan of the German student movement stated "Schlagt die Germanistik tot, färbt die blaue Blume rot!" ("Strike Germanistics dead, color the blue flower red!") The discipline of Germanistics was targeted as a sclerotic field, not suited to the needs of the people of the present.

Television, Film, and Theatre

James and Ruth Bauer, husband and wife collaborative team, wrote an unconventional music theatre piece entitled THE BLUE FLOWER at the turn of the 21st century. Speaking through liberally fictionalized versions of artists Max Beckmann, Franz Marc, and Hannah Hoch as well as pivotal female scientific figure Marie Curie, the piece works with the romantic significance of the blue flower as it meditates on the brutal political and cultural turmoil of World War I, the short lived Weimar Republic, and Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the Nazi Party. The most recent production of the play was in New York City at THE WEST END THEATER in February/March 2008, presented by PROSPECT THEATER COMPANY and directed by WILL POMERANTZ.

In the movie follow-up to David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks, entitled Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, two FBI agents are informed about their upcoming task through a woman named Lil. On her lapel is a tiny, artificial blue rose, clearly symbolic of something; but when Sam asks, Chet simply replies, "But I can't tell you about that."

Blue flowers are featured in the 2005 film Batman Begins. In it, blue flowers are used as the source of a fear-intensifying hallucinogenic drug. The drug is used by Ra's al Ghul and Dr. Jonathan Crane (the Scarecrow), who plan to terrorize Gotham City by weaponizing the drug into a concentrated powder form and release it into the city's water supply.

Blue flowers are again used as the source of the fictitious drug Substance D in the 2006 adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel A Scanner Darkly which is based on his book A Scanner Darkly.

References

• Werner Helwig: Die Blaue Blume des Wandervogels. Deutscher Spurbuchverlag, 1998. ISBN 3-88778-208-9