Fleurs dans une coupe

Flowers in a Bowl, painted in 1901 on the Marquesas Islands, belongs to the still life work Gauguin produced using the tropical flowers available in his remote Pacific location. These late still lifes have been somewhat overshadowed by his grander figurative and landscape compositions, but they represent a sustained engagement with the still life genre transformed by his Polynesian environment. The flower species of Polynesia — including hibiscus, tiare gardenias, frangipani — were entirely unfamiliar to the European still life tradition, and Gauguin's treatment of them refused the Dutch and French floral conventions that had dominated the genre for three centuries. His approach brought the full authority of his mature Synthetist method to these new subjects: the flowers organized for chromatic impact rather than botanical accuracy, the bowl simplified into a sculptural form that reflected his interest in Oceanic vessel shapes encountered in the material culture of the region. The late still lifes thus document both the geographical reach of his primitivist project and the continued vitality of his formal intelligence in the final years before his death in May 1903.

Gauguin uses his characteristic rich palette to distinguish between different flower species within the bowl, the colours organized for maximum chromatic impact rather than botanical accuracy. His confident brushwork captures the varied textures of petals and leaves without descending into illustrative detail.