With the Ashmolean Museum just down the street, I never need to go far from campus to be immersed in art. Nature and the environment feature in many of the pieces, from oil paintings of rugged seascapes to delicate botanical watercolors. One of my favorite paintings occupies a wall in the third-floor Pre-Raphaelite gallery. With its vivid colors and fine details, it’s a piece of spring sunshine that contrasts against the cold, gray Oxford weather outside.

“Convent Thoughts” by Charles Allston Collins depicts a nun in a walled garden, holding an open book in one hand and a passionflower in the other. The flowers behind her are meant to symbolize certain spiritual virtues, but the minutely detailed way each variety is rendered makes them a key part of the painting beyond their role as a visual metaphor. From the drooping blossoms of the evergreen honeysuckle to the rippling leaves of the water lilies, the flowers are so distinct that I could almost use the painting as an identification guide. Though I don’t think plants need to represent anything to be meaningful, the fact that the painter used flowers to convey a message (and the long history of using flowers as symbols in art and literature) reflects the way that nature captures the human imagination, even in a setting as familiar as a garden. Depictions of nature in art reflect our appreciation for the world around us, as well as how evocative our environment can be – how a vibrant garden can embody the warmth of a distant spring, and how a contemplative eye can find a world of meaning in a single blossom.