Studio: international art (85.1923)

THE FLOWER-PIECE IN MODERN ART

“ APPLE BLOSSOM.” WATER-
COLOUR BY L. BLATHERWICK

Dutch painters treated the flower-piece as
a serious work of art, has it been so much
in vogue as during the last few years. Those
Dutch painters were inspired by a national
love of flowers and gardens, and rendered
with loving care their groups of flowers ;
usually formal groups against a dark back-
ground. Later on, in France, when a
certain artificial rusticity came into fashion,
there resulted a cult of flowers and gardens.
A period which delighted in elegance
naturally recognised the decorative value
of flowers,but flower-painting was regarded
as an accessory rather than as a subject
in itself. a a a a a

During the Victorian era flower-painting
was a favourite occupation of leisured
ladies, some of whom produced charming
flower drawings, characterised by the
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chaste detachment of a sampler or a
botanical study. Among the Victorian
artists who turned from other branches of
art to the painting of fruit and flowers was
W. H. Hunt, whose works are now much
sought after. Unable to follow his bent as a
landscape painter, he gave himself to those
small pictures of still-life in which flowers
sometimes played a part, a a 0
Very different from the spirit which
inspired Hunt's modest studies of prim-
roses is that which underlies the daring,
individualistic flower-pieces of to-day,
infinitely varied in subject and treatment.
For the most part decorative and impres-
sionistic, the modern flower-painting aims
at originality, and gives scope for that love
of pure, strong colour which is evinced
in every department of art at this time. In