Bunch of flowers with yellow dahlia

A master at painting apples, CŽzanne also gave us remarkable pictures of flowers. He approached this theme during his Impressionist period. This bunch of dahlias, dating from around 1873, shows the influence of Manet, Pissaro and especially of Monticelli. The composition is very simple and rejects all anecdotal detail or symbolic interpretation. The painter focused his attention on the rendering of the texture of the flowers with small, thick brush stokes of rich colour. Renoir related that CŽzanne used reproductions and paper flowers to inspire him for his still lifes but the flowers here are so sensuous and the colours so fresh that they seem to exclude that procedure for this painting.