Nasturtiums and Dahlias in a Basket

Nasturtiums and Dahlias in a Basket (1884) at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo belongs to Gauguin's flower still-life production during his early professional years, when he was building a body of work in the Impressionist tradition before his Synthetist breakthrough. Nasturtiums were a popular subject in Impressionist circles for their strong, unmodulated orange and yellow colors — Pissarro and Cézanne both painted them — and their inclusion in this basket arrangement alongside dahlias created the kind of intense chromatic dialogue that was becoming increasingly central to Gauguin's formal concerns. The Oslo museum's possession of this canvas alongside the 1884 Madame Mette Gauguin in Evening Dress reflects the Norwegian and Scandinavian interest in Gauguin that was partly motivated by his Danish connections through his wife Mette-Sophie Gad. The formal ambition visible in the nasturtiums' strong color, even within the Impressionist framework of this early canvas, points toward the much more radical color liberation of his Breton and Polynesian work.

The flowers are painted with fresh, direct brushwork that records the varied colours of nasturtiums and dahlias without over-elaborating their botanical detail. The basket provides a warm, woven ground for the colourful blooms. The palette is relatively naturalistic but shows Gauguin's eye for strong colour complementarity — the warm oranges and yellows of the nasturtiums particularly vivid against surrounding greens.