Bouquet of Flowers. Phlox

Bouquet of Flowers: Phlox, painted in 1884 and held at the Tretyakov Gallery, is one of the very rare still-life works in Kramskoi's output, whose focus was overwhelmingly on the human face and figure. The date — the last year before his health began its final decline — suggests this may have been a diversion or personal work rather than a commissioned piece. Phlox, a cottage garden flower common across Russian estates and gardens, would have carried associations of summer, of country life, and of the informal natural world that surrounded the Russian intelligentsia's dacha culture. For a painter who had spent his career confronting the hardest questions of social responsibility and moral seriousness, a bouquet of phlox in summer light represents a moment of unguarded pleasure in natural colour. The Tretyakov holds it as an example of Kramskoi's full range, alongside the great portraits and Christ in the Wilderness.

The floral subject allows Kramskoi to work with a broader, more varied palette than his portraiture typically demanded. Individual flower heads are rendered with loose, rounded marks that suggest their form without describing each petal. The overall effect emphasises the collective colour harmony of the bouquet rather than botanical detail.