Bouquet of Anemones (Bouquet d'anémones)

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Red and purple anemones burst from a floral-patterned glass vase standing on a hazy purple ground. Some blossoms are offset by the creamy white ground visible around their edges and others by a soft black outline. A streak of white on the right side of the vase's stem suggests that light may enter from this direction, but the floating quality of the vase in space, as well as the opalescent color, probably allude to floral still lives painted by Odilon Redon. Shortly after moving from Paris to Nice, where he painted Bouquet of Anemones , Matisse remarked that he had begun to use subdued colors and tones of black and gray as a way of searching for something new in his art.

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