Botanical and Floral Skateboard Wall Art: The Complete Guide

Last updated: July 2026 · By Stanislav Arnautov · Berlin · 17 min read

If you only ever buy one piece of art for a room you are unsure about, buy flowers.

That sounds like a retreat into safety, and partly it is. But there is a better reason. Botanical work has been the most consistently produced subject in European painting for four hundred years, and it survived that long because it does something specific: it holds attention without demanding anything. A face looks back at you. A landscape puts you somewhere. Flowers simply sit there being complicated, and you can live opposite them for years without being asked a question.

What follows is not a list of pretty things. The Dutch flower painters were doing something stranger than decoration, Van Gogh's two most famous botanical works were made for entirely different reasons, and one of the pieces in this range depicts a Roman emperor committing murder with rose petals.

Why botanical is the safest category

Three properties make flowers unusually reliable, and they are worth naming because they explain when to choose this category and when not to.

Almost nobody has a negative reaction. Art that depicts people, politics, religion or anything ironic will be loved by some and quietly disliked by others. Flowers do not divide a room. This matters enormously when the art is a gift, or when it goes somewhere other people have to sit — a waiting room, a guest bedroom, a shared office.

The palettes are cooperative. Botanical work tends toward greens, pinks, creams, soft blues and warm yellows, all of which appear somewhere in most interiors already. Our decorating guide covers the rule that matters most here: the artwork's dominant colour should already exist somewhere in the room. Flowers make that easy.

It rewards a second look without demanding a first one. A good flower painting is technically dense — dozens of individually observed forms, overlapping and receding — but the overall shape is calm. You notice it on day one and you are still finding things in it on day four hundred.

The honest counterpoint: this is the wrong category if you want a room to have an opinion. In a bar, a studio, a hallway you want people to remember, flowers will underperform something loud. Our Japanese range covers the pieces that do that job better.

The impossible bouquet: Dutch flower painting

Here is the fact that changes how you look at every Dutch flower still life you will ever see.

Those bouquets could not exist. A typical Dutch flower painting shows tulips, roses, irises, carnations, peonies and morning glory in one vase. Those flowers bloom in different months. No such arrangement was ever assembled, and no painter ever sat in front of one.

What the artists did instead was keep books of individual studies, drawn from life across a whole year, and then compose paintings from that library. The bouquet is a construction — an anthology of a year's flowering, assembled into a single impossible vase. Some paintings took more than a year to complete for exactly this reason: the painter was waiting for a flower to come into season.

Once you know this, the paintings stop being records and become arguments. They are about abundance, about the reach of Dutch trade, about the ability to possess every season at once. In a republic that had recently lost fortunes to tulip speculation, a painted bouquet was the only way to own flowers permanently.

The second layer is darker. Look closely at a good example and you will usually find an insect, a caterpillar, a snail, a petal already browning, a stem beginning to droop. These are not accidents of observation. They are vanitas — deliberate reminders that everything depicted is in the process of dying. A Dutch flower painting is a picture of wealth with a memento mori built into it, which is a remarkable thing to hang above a sideboard.

Our Jan Davidsz de Heem Baroque Floral triptych at €310 is the fullest expression of this in the range. De Heem (1606–1684) worked in Utrecht and Antwerp and was among the most influential still-life painters of the century, known for dense, richly lit arrangements that other painters copied for generations. Spread across 256 cm, the composition has room to show what that density actually contains.

Rachel Ruysch, who painted for sixty years

Rachel Ruysch — €140 — deserves more attention than she usually gets, and not as a footnote about a woman who painted flowers.

Ruysch (1664–1750) was the daughter of an Amsterdam professor of anatomy and botany whose private collection of specimens was among the most extensive in Europe. She grew up with direct access to preserved plants, insects and rarities that most painters would never see, and it shows: her work is unusually precise about botanical structure, and the insects in it are identifiable.

She worked professionally for roughly six decades, was appointed court painter in Düsseldorf, raised ten children, and was still producing signed paintings in her eighties. Her prices during her lifetime were among the highest paid to any Dutch painter of her generation. She was, by the standards of her own century, a considerable commercial success — which is worth stating plainly, because the usual framing treats her as a rediscovery rather than as someone who was never actually obscure.

Her compositions tend to be looser and more asymmetric than de Heem's, often built on a strong diagonal with flowers falling away into shadow. On a single deck at 85 cm, that diagonal reads well.

Van Gogh: Sunflowers and Almond Blossom

Van Gogh's two most reproduced botanical works were made four years apart for completely different reasons, and knowing which is which changes where you put them.

Sunflowers triptych — €310. Painted in Arles in August 1888, and not as a still life exercise. Van Gogh was preparing the Yellow House for Gauguin's arrival and painted the sunflower canvases specifically to decorate the room Gauguin would sleep in. He worked fast, in a heat wave, racing the flowers as they wilted — he wrote that he was painting from morning light with the intention of catching them before they collapsed.

The yellows are the point. He was pushing a nearly monochrome painting — yellow flowers, yellow background, yellow vase — which was an unusual thing to attempt, and it is why the picture still looks modern. In a room, this reads as warmth and energy. It is the opposite of restful.

Almond Blossom triptych — €310. Painted in February 1890, in the asylum at Saint-Rémy, as a gift for his newborn nephew — named Vincent Willem after him. Almond trees flower first in that region, before anything else, which is exactly why he chose them. The painting is a birth announcement in botanical form.

Everything about its construction is calm where Sunflowers is agitated: flat Prussian blue sky, no horizon, no vase, no ground, branches cropped by the edges so the composition has no centre to fix on. It was painted under heavy Japanese influence, and the debt is obvious next to the sakura pieces in this same range. Our full guide to Almond Blossom covers the story properly.

The practical distinction: Sunflowers for a kitchen, dining room or workspace. Almond Blossom for a bedroom, nursery or anywhere someone needs to be calm. Both are triptychs at 256 cm, so both need a wide wall — our sizing guide explains why that is wider than a standard sofa.

Klimt's Tree of Life

Tree of Life triptych — €310. Botanical in subject and nothing like the others in treatment.

It comes from the Stoclet Frieze, a design Klimt made for the dining room of a private mansion in Brussels, executed in mosaic with marble, glass, enamel and gold. It was never intended as a painting on a wall — it was architecture, a room-sized decorative scheme for a specific house.

The tree itself is not a study of a tree. The branches spiral into flat gold coils that abandon botany entirely, closer to metalwork or Byzantine mosaic than to observation. That is the whole point: Klimt was working at the edge between picture and pattern, and the tree is the excuse for the pattern.

In a room, this behaves differently to the other botanical pieces. It is gold-dominant, which means it needs warmth around it — wood, brass, leather, dark walls. Against grey and concrete it can look stranded. Our Klimt guide covers the range in full.

Sakura and the Japanese approach

Sakura Bloom diptych — €230. The Japanese tradition approaches flowers from the opposite direction to the Dutch.

Where a Dutch bouquet assembles a whole year into one impossible arrangement — an argument for abundance and permanence — Japanese cherry blossom is about the opposite. It matters because it lasts about a week. The practice of hanami, sitting under the trees while they flower, is a scheduled appointment with impermanence, and the aesthetic term for the feeling is mono no aware.

Visually this produces restraint: fewer elements, more empty ground, no attempt at density. Which makes sakura the calmest botanical option available and the strongest choice for a bedroom. At 171 cm the diptych also suits a king bed or a standard three-seat sofa, where the triptychs are too wide.

The strange ones

Four pieces in the botanical range are not conventional flower art, and each solves a problem the pretty options cannot.

The Roses of Heliogabalus — €230, diptych. The most beautiful unpleasant painting in the catalogue. Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) painted it in 1888, depicting the Roman emperor Elagabalus smothering his dinner guests to death under a deluge of rose petals released from the ceiling. The guests at the bottom of the canvas are drowning in flowers while the emperor watches from the couch above.

The story behind its making is almost as strange as the subject. Alma-Tadema wanted the petals painted from life, in a London winter, so he reportedly had fresh roses shipped weekly from the French Riviera to his studio over roughly four months. Every petal in the picture was observed.

It hangs beautifully and it will start conversations. It is also, on inspection, a picture of a massacre, which makes it a poor choice for a nursery and an excellent one for a dining room with a sense of humour.

Fly Agaric Mushroom — €140. Botanical illustration rather than flower painting, and the difference matters. The illustration tradition existed to identify species accurately for scientific and medical use, which produces a flatter, more diagrammatic image than a still life — closer to a plate from a herbal than to a painting. That graphic quality is why it works on a deck, and the red-and-white is the strongest colour hit in the botanical range.

Lemon Botanical — €140. Same tradition, gentler execution. Citrus studies are a staple of vintage botanical print, and the yellow-and-green reads as fresh rather than sweet. This is the kitchen piece: it belongs where food is, and it is small enough to fit the awkward wall between cupboard and window that nothing else fits.

Blue and White Chinoiserie Floral — €140. Chinoiserie was the European imitation of Chinese porcelain decoration, and the blue-and-white palette it produced is one of the most durable in decorative art — it has been in continuous fashion for roughly three centuries. Practically, it is the single easiest piece here to place: blue and white sits against almost any wall colour and any wood tone.

Two more sit at the edge of the category. Floral Bloom at €140 is the straightforward contemporary option with no history attached, for people who want the flowers without the essay. And Rochegrosse's Knight of the Flowers at €140 is a Symbolist painting in which the flowers are the antagonist — a knight pushing through a field of blossoming temptation, painted by Georges Rochegrosse (1859–1938).

Which piece, which room

Two notes on combining them. Do not mix traditions in one arrangement. A Dutch still life and a Japanese sakura next to each other cancel out — they are arguing opposite positions about time. Group Dutch with Dutch, or run a single format across a wall.

Botanical work suits repetition better than most subjects. Three single decks of different botanical studies at consistent height read as a herbarium rather than as three unrelated pictures, which is why this is the strongest category for a corridor or a stairwell run.

Frequently asked questions

Why are Dutch flower paintings impossible?

Because the flowers in them bloom in different months and could never have been arranged in one vase. A typical Dutch still life shows tulips, roses, irises, carnations, peonies and morning glory together, which is botanically impossible as a live arrangement. The painters worked instead from books of individual studies drawn from life across a whole year, then composed the finished painting from that library — meaning the bouquet is an anthology of a year's flowering rather than a record of something observed. Some paintings took over a year to finish because the artist was waiting for a particular flower to come into season. This makes the genre an argument about abundance and permanence rather than a documentary record, which is also why so many contain an insect, a snail or a browning petal as a vanitas reminder that everything shown is dying.

What is the best botanical skateboard art for a bedroom?

Van Gogh's Almond Blossom or Sakura Bloom, and the reason is compositional rather than thematic. Both avoid the things that make a piece restless above a bed: neither has a strong single focal point, neither uses high contrast, and both use flat, calm grounds. Almond Blossom in particular has no horizon, no vase and no ground line, with branches cropped by the edges so there is no centre for the eye to fix on — appropriate, since Van Gogh painted it in 1890 specifically for a newborn's nursery. Sakura works on the same principle through Japanese restraint. Avoid Sunflowers in a bedroom: its near-monochrome yellow is deliberately energetic and reads as warmth and activity rather than rest.

What is the difference between Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Almond Blossom?

They were painted four years apart for opposite purposes. Sunflowers was made in Arles in August 1888 to decorate the room Gauguin would sleep in at the Yellow House, worked at speed in a heat wave as the flowers wilted, and pushes an almost entirely yellow palette — yellow flowers, yellow background, yellow vase — which is why it still looks modern and why it reads as energetic in a room. Almond Blossom was painted in February 1890 at the asylum in Saint-Rémy as a gift for his newborn nephew, using flat Prussian blue, no horizon and no centre, under heavy Japanese influence. Practically: Sunflowers suits a kitchen, dining room or workspace; Almond Blossom suits a bedroom, nursery or waiting area.

Who was Rachel Ruysch?

Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750) was one of the most commercially successful flower painters of the Dutch Golden Age. She was the daughter of an Amsterdam professor of anatomy and botany whose specimen collection was among the most extensive in Europe, which gave her direct access to preserved plants and insects that most painters never saw — her work is correspondingly precise about botanical structure, and the insects in it are identifiable. She worked professionally for roughly sixty years, served as court painter in Düsseldorf, raised ten children, and was still producing signed paintings in her eighties. Her prices during her lifetime were among the highest paid to any Dutch painter of her generation, so she is better described as never having been obscure than as a rediscovery.

Is botanical wall art a safe gift?

It is the safest category available, for three reasons. Almost nobody has a negative reaction to flowers, whereas art depicting people, politics, religion or anything ironic will be quietly disliked by some recipients. The palettes — greens, pinks, creams, soft blues, warm yellows — already appear in most interiors, which satisfies the main decorating rule that the artwork's dominant colour should exist somewhere in the room. And botanical work rewards long looking without demanding immediate attention, so it does not exhaust the recipient. The main risk with any gifted artwork is scale rather than subject: unless you have measured the recipient's wall, a single deck at 85 cm is safer than a 256 cm triptych.

What does The Roses of Heliogabalus actually depict?

It depicts a murder. Lawrence Alma-Tadema painted it in 1888, showing the Roman emperor Elagabalus smothering his dinner guests to death beneath a deluge of rose petals released from a false ceiling, with the guests drowning in flowers at the bottom of the composition while the emperor watches from a couch above. The making of it is nearly as unusual as the subject: Alma-Tadema wanted every petal painted from life during a London winter, so he reportedly had fresh roses shipped weekly from the French Riviera to his studio across roughly four months. It is beautiful, it starts conversations, and it is a poor choice for a nursery.

Article summary

Botanical and floral work is the easiest art category to place and to give, because almost nobody reacts negatively to flowers, the palettes already exist in most interiors, and the images reward long looking without demanding attention. deckarts prints it in all three formats: singles at €140, diptychs at €230, triptychs at €310. Dutch Golden Age still life — Jan Davidsz de Heem and Rachel Ruysch — depicts impossible bouquets assembled from a year of separate studies, usually with a vanitas insect or wilting petal built in. Van Gogh's Sunflowers, painted in 1888 to decorate Gauguin's room, is energetic and suits kitchens and workspaces; Almond Blossom, painted in 1890 for a newborn nephew, is calm and suits bedrooms and nurseries. Klimt's Tree of Life comes from the Stoclet Frieze and needs warm surroundings. Japanese sakura approaches flowers from the opposite premise to the Dutch, valuing transience over abundance, which makes it the calmest option. The range also includes botanical illustration in fly agaric and lemon studies, chinoiserie blue-and-white, and Alma-Tadema's Roses of Heliogabalus. Do not mix Dutch and Japanese work in one arrangement, and use repetition of single decks for corridors.

About the author

Stanislav Arnautov is the founder of deckarts, a graphic designer and print specialist originally from Ukraine, now based in Berlin, where he personally designs and prepares every deck. Follow the work on Instagram or at stasarnautov.com.