White and Yellow Chrysanthemums 1893

Curator: The first impression, really, is that this piece blooms with life! Editor: It does—this is "White and Yellow Chrysanthemums," an oil painting by Gustave Caillebotte completed around 1893. He presents these densely packed flowers against a loosely defined background, housed at the Musée Marmottan Monet. The canvas itself has such a tactile, almost textile-like presence... Curator: Yes, a textile of light and texture, exactly. The way he captures the fading of one colour into the next...it is something quite rare and quite breathtakingly, emotionally moving. Almost a field of exploding stars! It makes one think of gardens, death, love, you know? The great ephemera. Editor: Absolutely. There’s such clear emphasis on the materiality of the paint—one sees the strokes so distinctly— it almost challenges the tradition distinction between so-called "high art" and something like decorative arts...the rendering, for example, shares clear commonality with turn-of-the-century textile designs. How fascinating he seems to make his own statement with an insistence on process, like some woven labour of petals and stems. Curator: You've perfectly encapsulated the genius of Caillebotte! The raw material almost becomes another flower of sorts. Almost something entirely else! I also feel Caillebotte, as an artist who funded a lot of his peer's artworks, shows the spirit of collaboration. A testament to both how artists affect one another. Editor: Certainly, we shouldn’t separate his life from his art and appreciate the intersection. Curator: I shall now never see chrysanthemums without this moment in time, this glimpse, this dance between the paint and the feeling they inspire. Editor: It underscores art's incredible capacity for reinvention by embracing both means and making. A true marriage!