Paintings I love
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
Corbeille de fleurs
oil on canvas, 65.6 x 81.4 cm.
Painted in 1890
Private collection
Brimming with light and colour, Corbeille de fleurs is a floral still life by Pierre-Auguste Renoir that is filled with lush detail and gives a sense of the cornucopia, of plenty, of fertility. Painted in 1890, this picture perfectly encapsulates Renoir’s love of beauty, and as a vision of a world of fecundity and sensual pleasures can be seen as a parallel to his celebrated depictions of women. Indeed, in the lavish brushwork that fills this canvas, the artist’s own enjoyment of the motif, his own pleasure in creating this sumptuous vision, are palpable.
For Renoir, the processes of painting still life and of painting figures were different, yet were intertwined: ‘I just let my brain rest when I paint flowers. I don’t experience the same tension as I do when confronted by the model. When I am painting flowers, I establish the tones, I study the values carefully without worrying about losing the picture. I don’t dare do this with a figure piece for fear of ruining it. The experience I gain from these works, I eventually apply to my [figure] paintings’. In part, this was due to the stillness of the motif, which allowed the artist to contemplate it for far longer stretches. This may have played its part in allowing Renoir time to capture the incredible wealth of detail with which he has filled this picture.
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