Fleurs dans un vase vert

In Fleurs dans un vase vert, sunflowers, daisies and marigolds blossom alongside green and ochre foliage, a lush bouquet casually arranged in bright multicolored vase where blues, purples, reds and greens intertwine. Such floral arrangements became Redon’s primary focus during the last two decades of his life, shifting away from the monsters and demons of his noir period, and expending the exploration of colors so present in his mythical scenes. The artist’s flower paintings were so influential because he treated color as independent from subject, anticipating later developments in modern art. “Redon’s work heralds the growing autonomy of [color and space], using them no longer to describe the object, but as an independent attribute of the image” (M. Hollein, As In a Dream: Odilon Redon, Frankfurt, 2007, p. 8).
In 1910, around the year that the present work was painted, Redon and his wife Camille began spending summers in Bièvres, a small commune south-west of Paris, after inheriting the home of Camille’s half-sister. “It is there, without a doubt, in an atelier, ‘a little refuge’ that he extends in the back of the garden where decides to sow flowers in disorder and fantasy […], that Redon executed many of his bouquets of flowers” (A. Wildenstein, op. cit., 1996, p. 6).
Fleurs dans un vase vert hung in the artist’s apartment, and remained in his collection until his passing; it then belonged to his son Arï.