Yalta — Flowers

Ciągliński painted Yalta — Flowers in 1899, during a trip to Crimea. Four roses — white, yellow, pink, and magenta — are scattered across a ground of rough ochre and brown brushwork, with a patch of gray-blue in the upper left. There's no vase, no table, no arrangement. The flowers sit directly on the painted surface, each one rendered in a few quick, thick strokes. The bare canvas shows through at the edges and between the blooms. It has the feeling of a color study — individual observations of flowers rather than a composed still life.