Still Life: Flowers

By 1885 Renoir had grown restless with Impressionism. He later said he had gone as far as he could with it, that he had reached the end of what those loose, flickering brushstrokes could do. He wanted firmer drawing and cooler control, the lessons of the old masters he had studied in Italy a few years before. That shift shows up even in a small flower piece like this. The colour is held back, the shapes are clearer than you would expect from him, and the blooms sit in a distinctive vase with little elephant heads for handles. It was the same year his first son, Pierre, was born.