Flowers
This conversation is connected to Flowers.
Oil on canvas, signed lower right. A blue-and-white ceramic vase decorated with what looks like a figure in the Chinese style, sits on a white plate or tray on a table, holding yellow flowers (probably chrysanthemums or marigolds) and pink roses or peonies. The background is deep blue at center, with olive and brown at the edges and a vertical stripe of bright red at the right. The entire surface is fractured into angular planes of overlapping color; Cubist structure holding Fauvist color. By 1915, Saÿen had been back in Philadelphia for a year after eight years in Paris, and his work was shifting from the loose Fauvism of his Matisse years toward something more architecturally organized, influenced by Synthetic Cubism and Synchromism. The vase and flowers are recognizable, but the space around them is shattered into competing geometries.