Big Still Life with Flowers 1937

Kmetty János made this big still life with flowers with visible brushstrokes in a muted colour palette, mostly blues, pinks and oranges. You can almost feel him layering the paint, mixing shades, and figuring out the composition as he goes. I wonder what he was thinking when he chose those flowers. The brushstrokes make it feel like a kind of dance, a search for form within a domestic space. The pink chair is like a silent witness to the whole scene. Did he move things around, adjusting the light, or was it all from memory? There is a painting within a painting, a landscape hanging on the wall. This is a classic device, and makes me think of the way artists work in conversation with other artists and their visions of the world. This still life seems so modest and so assured all at once.