Emile Claus Summer Wildflower Meadow Postcard

The meadow fills nearly the whole canvas. Pink, mauve, white, and yellow wildflowers are stippled across a blue-green field in their thousands, the Luminist technique so fine that from a distance the effect reads as shimmer rather than individual brushstrokes. A low horizon opens onto red-tiled farmhouses and a wedge of dark poplar and willow, with one small figure working beside a hay-stook.

A high-summer field for the gardener or nature-collector, best sent while the flowers it shows are still actually in bloom.