It’s sunflower season, and these beautiful late summer flowers are connected to a touching Greek myth. Clytie the nymph adored the sun God Helios. But he rejected her. Slowly Clytie pined away from loneliness. Day after day she watched with longing as he flew his chariot across the sky. Eventually the gods took pity on her and turned her into the flower that follows the sun. It is likely that the original flower in the stories was the heliotrope, but over time this has evolved into the sunflower which mythically turns its head towards the sun through its course each day.
The image is taken from Our Lady of Cow Parsley by Elisabeth Sonrel (1874-1953) Elisabeth produced art nouveau poster designs and gorgeous pre-Raphaelite style paintings. Despite her obvious talent, she was only able to study at a private art school, as women were not accepted at the best state funded Parisian schools at that time.
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