Still Life with Flowers

Émile Bernard's 'Still Life with Flowers' (1887) is a still life from his transitional year before the full development of his Cloisonnist style — his flower subjects showing the formal investigations that would lead to the bold outline and flat color of his 1888 work alongside Gauguin. The still life with flowers placed him within the tradition of French flower painting (from Fantin-Latour to the Impressionists) while his developing formal ambitions pushed toward a treatment that would transform the conventional decorative subject.

Bernard renders the flowers with the transitional quality of his 1887 work — the naturalist observation still present but increasingly inflected by his search for more deliberate formal organization. His handling of the flowers' colors and forms shows him moving toward the bolder simplification of his Cloisonnist period while maintaining the direct observation of his Impressionist foundation. The compositional organization of the flowers within the picture space shows his developing interest in formal structure over atmospheric dissolution.