Flowers Etude 1953

Petros Malayan has made a flower etude with oil paint. I wonder about the way Malayan has put the paint on the canvas in such a hurry. He is really going for it with these flower forms, almost like he is wrestling with them. The dark red roses and the yellow flower hover around the central white flower like they are fighting for the spotlight. It is the underdog purple flower that has escaped the vase that captures my attention. I love how he uses this one flower to upset the whole arrangement. I often think about how all painters are in a conversation with each other. Malayan must have been looking at a lot of other still-life painters. But who knows, maybe he was more interested in the play of the unexpected. It’s these weird decisions that make a painting memorable.