Zinnias
1909-1912
Henry Lyman Sayen treats these zinnias less like delicate garden flowers and more like a stained-glass window exploded with color. Notice the thick, dark outlines wrapping around the petals and the vase—it gives the whole bouquet a graphic, almost cartoonish energy that was radical for 1910. Sayen was an American artist living in Paris during this time, absorbing the wild, non-natural colors of the Fauvist movement and the structural ideas of early Cubism. He was actually an inventor and engineer by trade, which might explain why these flowers look so structurally bold and designed. It’s a still life that refuses to sit still!
- Technique
- Oil on canvas
- Material
- Oil paint