L'œuvre en bref

This painting belongs to the final years of Auguste Renoir's career, when he was settled at Cagnes-sur-Mer in his Les Collettes estate. Suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis, the artist nonetheless continued to paint relentlessly, his brush sometimes strapped to his paralyzed hand. Floral still lifes were for him an essential exercise, as he explained to his son Jean Renoir: painting roses allowed him to push chromatic boldness further without concerning himself with the model. This late period, marked by an explosion of flamboyant reds and oranges, would lastingly influence younger painters such as Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard, who considered him a master.

The bouquet overflows generously from a small vase with blue and ochre patterns, set on a pale table. The roses, rendered in a range running from pale pink to deep red and through brilliant yellows, seem to melt into one another in an explosion of paint. The orange-red background, bold and vibrant, makes the flowers literally burst forward while creating a chromatic unity of great intensity. The brushwork is free, fleshy, almost feverish, abandoning all concern for botanical precision in favour of pure sensation of colour and light. This pictorial freedom, in which matter takes precedence over drawing, testifies to the striking modernity of late Renoir, far removed from the Impressionism of his early years.

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