Pansy: The Flower of Freethought Poster

The pansy emerged as a symbol of the freethought movement as a direct result of its etymology. Pansy comes from a French noun, pensée which means a thought.

An American Secular Union pamphlet from the lates 1800s reads, “Let every patriot who is a Freethinker in this sense, adopt the pansy as his badge … as a silent and unobtrusive testimony of his principles. In this way we shall recognize our brethren in the cause…
Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, a peace activist, atheist and freethinker (1858-1935) found the streets of Prague 1920 International Freethought Congress full of hundreds of persons wearing the Congress badge and the pansy, a symbol of freethought.

Freethought emerged as a term in the 1700s and a dictionary definition of a freethinker from 1913 describes freethinkers as those who form opinions on the basis of reason, independent of authority, especially one who rejects or denies religious dogma.

The watercolor botanical illustration was created by Pierre-Joseph Redouté, a painter and botanist from the Austian Netherlands. He was called the Raphael of Flowers and the greatest botanical illustrator of all time. This painting was first published in 1827.

Museum-quality poster on 10.3 mm thick matte paper.

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