White and Yellow Chrysanthemums — Gustave Caillebotte | Art Postcard

One of the painter's late garden close-ups, cropped tight against the chrysanthemum bed at Petit Gennevilliers so the eye stays inside the flowers rather than the wider grounds. By 1893 Caillebotte was as much horticulturist as Impressionist — he corresponded with Monet about seed varieties and entered chrysanthemums in the Paris horticultural show — and these late flower pictures carry the intensity of a grower's attention rather than a decorator's. The palette keeps to white, yellow, and pale pink against a greenish ground, the blooms loose and slightly overblown, painted at exactly the point before they would need cutting back. A rich, late-season card for gardeners, flower lovers, and anyone sending late-autumn post to a fellow enthusiast of Impressionist still life.