Chrysanthèmes blancs et jaunes, jardin du Petit Gennevilliers

By the time he painted this, Gustave Caillebotte had largely stepped back from the Paris art world. Wealthy enough not to need to sell, he had moved out to Petit-Gennevilliers on the Seine and thrown himself into gardening and boats. He grew chrysanthemums, roses and irises on the property, and here he pushes right up close to a bank of white and yellow blooms until they fill the whole canvas, with no sky and no horizon. Chrysanthemums were newly fashionable in France then, admired for their color and their link to Japan and China. He seems to have imagined flower pictures like this set into the panels of a dining-room door. He painted it in 1893 and died the following year, only 45.