Flowers 1940

Martiros Sarian painted these flowers, sometime around 1941, maybe with oils, but it looks like a slightly dry brush technique. I love the way that the texture is built up here, those layers of paint working to create a sense of volume and density, especially in the blooms themselves. It’s interesting how the paint almost feels like fabric, with all these little threads that make up the surface. The colours, too, have a sort of muted quality – not quite pastel, but definitely softened, as if seen through a veil. Look at the way Sarian renders the petals of those crimson dahlias, with such gestural marks, giving them a real sense of life and movement. Sarian is an artist who, like Matisse, reminds us that art is a conversation across time, and a reminder that painting, at its best, is never about perfect representation, but about opening up new ways of seeing and feeling the world.