Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Bouquet of Chrysanthemums, 1881

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". | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bouquet of Chrysanthemums
Artist: Auguste Renoir (French, Limoges 1841–1919 Cagnes-sur-Mer)
Date: 1881
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 26 x 21 7/8 in. (66 x 55.6 cm)
Credit Line: The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, Bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 821
Accession Number: 2003.20.10

Renoir sentiva di avere maggiore libertà di sperimentare nelle nature morte che nei dipinti di figura.

"Quando dipingo fiori, mi sento libero di provare toni e valori e mi preoccupo meno di distruggere la tela",

ha detto allo scrittore Georges Rivière.

"Non lo farei con una pittura figurativa dato che lì mi piacerebbe distruggere il lavoro". | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art