Flowers

Flowers (1890) on panel, held at the Rijksmuseum, is one of Monet's floral still lifes from a period when he increasingly used such works as technical exercises and as commercially viable products between large-scale campaigns. Monet was a passionate horticulturalist who designed and maintained elaborate gardens at Argenteuil and later at Giverny. Floral paintings allowed him to explore pure color relationships and handling without the constraints of landscape or figural composition, and these intimate works sold readily to Parisian collectors. The panel support is unusual in his mature oeuvre, suggesting this was a relatively quickly executed work.

Flowers are rendered in rapid, gestural strokes of saturated color—pinks, whites, and deep purples—against a loosely stated dark ground. Monet's handling is energetic and summary rather than botanical; the effect is of blooms perceived in the vibrancy of full light rather than recorded in detail.