When truth is beauty and beauty is tulips

Two Lips!
Photo by Gabriel S. Delgado C.

What is it about tulips that has made them so compelling to humans?

The "tulipmania" of Holland in the 1630s resulted in single tulips being worth more than some houses.  From their humble origins on the steppes of Central Asia to their annual stardom on the streets of Albany, New York, tulips have been cherished by populations as diverse as Turkish sultans and Yugoslav soldiers.

The question is...  Why?

In her poem Tulips, Sylvia Plath provides us with clues.  As she lies depressed within a hospital, Plath laments the vibrancy of her bedside tulips with these words: The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here... I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted to lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty...  The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me...  Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color...  The vivid tulips eat my oxygen...  They concentrate my attention... The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat...

Famed journalist Michael Pollen investigates the relationship between people and tulips in his book The Botany of Desire.  He discusses the voluptuousness of these flowers that morph from a tightly-clenched "chaste" position to an open and "receptive" one.  He proceeds to disclose that when the tulip finally "collapses," the petals fall down around its sexually-exposed innards.

Such descriptions speak to the fatal attraction between humans and tulips.  They have engineered one another quite literally.  The modern-day tulip is as much a human creation as it is a natural one.  The modern-day human is quite the same.  Together they reflect the Madison Avenue motto that "beauty is truth and truth beauty," and together they replace the longings of the human soul with the desires of the human mind and body.

Resources

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dutch_tulip_bulb_market_bubble.asp#:~:text=The%20Dutch%20tulip%20bulb%20market%20bubble%2C%20also%20known%20as%20tulipmania,of%20tulip%20bulbs%20to%20extremes.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49013/tulips-56d22ab68fdd0

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41021145-the-botany-of-desire