Auricula or Primula
The Auricula Theatre at Calke Abbey.
The Auricula Theatre at Calke Abbey.
Click for three dimensional Mandelbrot fractals called Mandelbulb, here. (Thanks to Sam Knight for the link)
On a research and reconnaissance mission with Fibre Art Wales, at the National Botanical Gardens of Wales, we were taken to the Walled Garden. There we were shown the site that once was the old Auricula Theatre.
Apparently, in olden days when ladies of a gentler disposition were taken with a fit of the vapours or shocked by the appearance of an untoward table leg, they were directed to sit and contemplate the rows of Primula (Auricula) flowers in the Auricula Theatre to calm and steady ones nerves.
The flowers have striking, bold and velvety colours , which appear in concentric rings around each flower head which is made of a multiple of blooms. They appear to me to be quite fractal in design, and perhaps en masse quite hypnotic . They are reported to have been of a calming nature to the ladies of those times.
I was amused and inspired by the tale of flowers comforting the nervy. It also brought to mind the whole language of flowers fashion which was extremely popular in Victorian times.
But, even more interesting is the Pythagorean mathematical healing properties of the repetition and colour in nature.
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