Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919)
Bouquet de chrysanthèmes (Bouquet of Chrysanthemums)
1881
Oil on canvas, 66 x 55.6 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Renoir felt that he had greater freedom to experiment in still lifes than in figure paintings. “When I paint flowers, I feel free to try out tones and values and worry less about destroying the canvas,” he told the writer Georges Rivière. “I would not do this with a figure painting since there I would care about destroying the work.” (MET)