Description of the picture:
Flowers in a clay vase – Henri Fantin-Latour. 1883. Oil on canvas. 23×29
Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) is a famous French artist and lithographer of the second half of the XIX century. His contemporaries were impressionists, but the painter preferred to work in a style close to realism. The master is known for group portraits of his friends – artists and writers, as well as floral still lifes. Fantin-Latour preferred “composed” compositions.
Small in size painting “Flowers in a clay vase” attracts attention with the brightness of colors. The canvas is distinguished by the accuracy of the picture and the sophistication of the combinations of muted white-gray and pink tones. The artist so skillfully wrote, literally fashioned flowers that they seem alive. Despite the brightness and naturalness of the image, Fantin-Latour never used an open color smear, which was used by the Impressionists.
The painter liked to spend the summer in Bure, and upon his return to Paris he brought with him his favorite still lifes with flowers. The presented picture was painted just in one of these summer seasons. The artist gave her a sister who lived in Warsaw. She was married to a Russian officer Yanovsky, and later from his collection the canvas was in the Hermitage collection."
