Flower Power

For the April Art Poll By Bob, in honor of the the U.S.’s tax return deadline on April 15th, I asked the following question, “Which of these following money- or tax-related works brings you the most to account?” The returns are in and say the following: Quentin Matsys' The Moneylender and his Wife (1514) won with 9 votes over Hieronymus Bosch's Death and the Miser (1490s) with 8. Caravaggio's The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599-1600), Albrecht Dürer's (attributed) Of Usury, from Brant's Stultifera Navis (the Ship of Fools) (1494), John Leech's Ebenezer Scrooge and the Last of the Spirits from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (1843), and Paul Vos' The Tax Collector (1543) all tied for third place with 4 votes each. Lucas Cranach the Elder's Christ Drives the Usurers out of the Temple (1517) and Rembrandt's Christ Driving the Moneychangers from the Temple (1626) tied with 2 votes each and Niels Larsen Stevns' Zacchaeus (1913) and Thomas Sully's Shylock and Portia from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (1835) brought up the rear with a single vote each.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in and voted. I wish I could say a refund check is in the mail, but I can’t.

For the May Art Poll By Bob, I’ve decided to go floral in honor of those great May flowers allegedly brought by all those relentless April showers and ask, “Which of these beautiful bouquets would you pick for your garden of earthly delights?”:




Eugène Delacroix. Bouquet of Flowers (1849-1850).


Paul Gauguin. Sunflowers (1901).


Frida Kahlo. Flower of Life (1944).


Paul Klee. Heroic Roses (1938).


Gustav Klimt. Country Garden with Sunflowers (1905-1906).


Claude Monet. Monet's Garden, the Irises (1900).


Emil Nolde. Flower Garden (1908).


Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Roses (1890).

Vincent van Gogh. Irises, Sait-Rémy (1889).

Maybe all this flower power will help usher in a new age of peace, love, and understanding like back in 1967 when Bernie Boston snapped his famous Flower Power photo (top of post) showing Vietnam War protestors sticking flowers into the rifles barrels of National Guardsmen. Stop, smell the roses, tune in, tune out, and vote, but not necessarily in that order.