Description
Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Chrysanthemums
| Year of creation: | 1881–1882 |
| Original size: | 54.8 cm x 65.8 cm |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Art Institute of Chicago |
Chrysanthemums is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made in 1881–1882. The original measures 54.8 x 65.8 cm, is catalogued as 1933.1173 and hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. Our art reproduction Chrysanthemums is painted by hand in oil on canvas, in eight sizes from 70 x 60 to 150 x 130 cm.
A mass of chrysanthemums fills almost the whole canvas in white, cream, yellow, orange and pale violet. The petals are set down as short curling strokes, so that individual flowers dissolve into one another. The bunch stands in a plain grey-green vessel, barely modelled, low at the centre. Behind it the wall is only a loose weave of red, brown, blue and violet – a ground made of pure colour, with nothing in it.
That is what makes the picture unusual: Renoir is not painting a scene here but colour itself. The flowers are the excuse to set a warm red beside a cool blue and let the edges disappear. Step close and there are only brushstrokes; step back and there is a bouquet.
Our version is not a print. The blooms are built from dense, short loads of paint that do not blend, while the ground is laid in with broader, more fluid passes over a layer that has already dried. A hand-painted painting keeps that difference in the way the paint sits, which printed paper cannot imitate.
The lively but soft subject settles well in a living room, a dining room or a bedroom, including on a wall that gets little light. For a smaller wall 90 x 75 cm is enough; above a larger piece of furniture we recommend 120 x 100 cm. We paint to order, in a different size on request. Before dispatch we send you a photograph of the finished canvas for your approval. Every art reproduction Chrysanthemums arrives ready to hang, with the canvas stretched on a wooden frame.
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