Van Gogh: Sunflowers
Henri Fantin-Latour, The Rosy Wealth of June, National Gallery, London. There was an increasing demand for still-lifes of flowers in the second half of the nineteenth century, perhaps stimulated by the bright new pigments available and by the taste of the bourgeois customers, who wanted colourful, decorative pictures for their homes. Henri Fantin-Latour was a successful painter who specialised in flower pieces. His painting The Rosy Wealth of June , first exhibited at the Royal Academy, is indebted to the academic tradition, but is also aimed at the popular taste of the buying public. Fantin-Latour had begun his career by copying old masters in the Louvre (Lucie-Smith 12) and his debt to Dutch flower painters like Rachel Ruysch and Jan van Huysum can be seen in the dark background, the placing of the flower bowl on a table edge, the elaborate composition of the flower arrangement, and the harmony of the colours. Nevertheless, Fantin-Latour's painting could not be mistaken...