Roses in a Vase

Flowers are everywhere in Renoir’s paintings, whether as part of the landscape or as a decorative element—for example, gracing a lady’s hat—and they continue the centuries-long tradition of still lifes of cut flowers in vases. In the words of the artist himself, "Painting flowers puts my mind to rest. Nothing is as mentally taxing as rendering a model face to face. When painting flowers, I add hues and experiment with unusual color combinations, without worrying about ruining the canvas. I don’t dare to do the same with human beings for fear of spoiling everything. The experience I gather through these trials are applicable to other paintings." Renoir’s experimental use of color can be seen in Roses in a Vase, which represents a bouquet of the flowers in a blue-green tripod bowl. The vessel stands on a table, the top of which the artist has described with rich patches of paint that could either represent the patterns of a tablecloth or the reflection of the flowers on its surface. While the table is seen from above in a slightly skewed perspective, the vase is shown frontally, a presentation that, together with the profusion of color, creates an ambiguous, almost abstract pictorial space. An overall sense of fluidity is heightened by the fusion of the table with the mottled background, which increases the feeling of tension between the two, as well as with the three-dimensionality of the vase, which recalls the work of Cézanne, who had painted alongside Renoir in the 1880s. The chromatic and compositional diffusion is further heightened by the bluish-green shades of the background, which make it unclear whether the table is in an interior setting or outdoors.It may be that the dearth of details in the background and the distorted perspective are the result of the specific space for which the painting was intended. This painting, apparently, was created to hang in the Château de Wargemont, the ancestral home of Renoir’s patron Paul Berard. During the early 1880s, the artist painted a number of works in his friend’s home, and it is likely that Roses in a Vase was among them. Our painting was hung in the petit salon above the fireplace. Photographs of the room show what appears to be this painting in a wide frame with rounded interior corners. This may explain the lack of detail in these areas of the painting; its high placement may have dictated the usual perspective. At the center of the picture is an exuberant bouquet of roses, painted in rich pinks and purples with highlights of yellow and white, their green leaves echoing the shades of the table and background. The roses are represented in various stages of bloom, their luxuriance accentuated by the dynamic, diagonal thrust of the composition. Cut flowers in successive phases—of budding, blooming, and wilting—were a common subject in Dutch seventeenth-century painting as visual reminders of vanitas, warning of the transience of human life. Alongside these allegorical representations another floral still-life tradition developed, one of images intended simply to please the eye. In the second half of the nineteenth century, this genre would regain popularity among such naturalistic painters as Millet, Courbet, Bonvin, and Fatin-Latour. In its sketchy brushwork and semi-abstract background, Renoir's variation on the theme differs from both the illusionism of the Dutch vanitas paintings and the painstaking realism of those more contemporary renditions. While mirroring Renoir’s ongoing quest for beauty and harmony, these freely brushed flowers radiate an unquenchable optimism, and reveal the artist’s wonder at the bounties of nature.