Bowl of Flowers

John La Farge’s unusual artistic background and broad range of influences manifest themselves in his early still-life paintings. With an approach that ran counter to the dominant direction of American art, namely the Hudson River school, La Farge sought, through visible brushstrokes, to reveal his hand in these intimate and delicate portrayals. In reference to these paintings, James Yarnall writes, “These still lifes of flowers on table tops or window sills are among the best pictures of La Farge’s career, brimming with light and color, imbued with organic presence.” (John La Farge in Paradise: The Painter and his Muse, Newport, Rhode Island, 1995, p. 25) In Bowl of Flowers the vivid colors of the pansies, zinnias, roses and poppies contrast against the dark bowl and the modulated curtain. Henry Adams notes, “Before La Farge, American still-life specialists had tended to concentrate on fruit and costly objects rather than the more ethereal loveliness of flowers. La Farge’s still lifes, on the other hand, are almost exclusively flower paintings…He loved the decorative quality of flowers, painting them not as botanical specimens but as evokers of mood and complex poetic and lyric associations. An almost indefinable Oriental quality, at once delicate and unexpected, pervades these works.” (“The Mind of John La Farge,” John La Farge, Washington, D.C., 1987, p. 21)