Flowers, Chrysanthemums 1876

"Flowers, Chrysanthemums" is an intimate oil on canvas work by Henri Fantin-Latour, an artist working in 19th-century France, a place where the rigid hierarchy of genres in painting was slowly beginning to break down. Fantin-Latour was known for his still life and flower paintings, like this one, which existed within a very gendered art world where history painting was considered "high art" and still life was considered lower, a more feminine pursuit. Here, the artist abandons academic painting in favor of a kind of bourgeois realism that was extremely popular with the emerging middle class. You can almost smell the perfume of these flowers, arranged casually against a dark backdrop. Fantin-Latour seems interested in capturing the ephemeral beauty of nature in a way that feels very personal. Although seemingly apolitical, the work provides insight into the shifting social structures of 19th-century France through the lens of aesthetic expression. It marks a moment in time when traditional hierarchies were being questioned. The painting invites us to find beauty in the everyday, and perhaps to question the boundaries between the personal and the political.