Ephemeral Beauty: Painting the Floral Still Life

Troubadors 30 x 40” Oil Ann Trusty

A Brief History of Modern Florals

Anyone who chooses flowers for a painting subject is joining an historic and impressive line of artists who also felt the inspirational power of this quotidian subject. The short-list of French artists who tackled florals reads like a “who’s who” of modern French painting of the nineteenth century from Chardin and Redoute to Manet, Renoir, Monet, Caillebotte, Cassat, Degas, Pissaro, Sisley, Bonnard, Morisot, Cezanne, Gaugin, Redon, Fantin-LaTour, Matisse and of course, van Gogh. While artists have always explored the subject throughout history, it was not held in much regard among French art academies, salons and exhibitions until the middle of the nineteenth century. For two hundred years prior to that, still life, or Nature Morte (dead nature) was considered the lowest rung in the formulaic “hierarchy of genres” of French art criticism—below landscape, portraiture, or history paint…