Lily Painting

What the blue of the vases tells in the Lily Paintings

Why are the vases in the Lily Paintings almost always blue?

Observe these Lys paintings one after another: the flower varies, the container much less. Deep blue, vibrant turquoise, transparent glass that takes on the color of the shadow around it — the vase tends towards blue almost every time. It's not a painter's whim. The whiteness of the petals is an extreme value, almost without its own color; placed against a cold blue, it warms up immediately, appears creamy, slightly golden towards the throat. Against a brown or green pot, it would fade. Blue is here a tool, not an ornament.

The habit comes from afar. Bouquets painted in Northern workshops placed their flowers in blue and white faience pots, imitated from porcelain from China, because cobalt was about the only pigment capable of surviving a high-temperature firing. The blue was therefore not a matter of taste: it was what ceramics could do, and nothing else. Centuries later, these paintings inherit this without thinking, and the blue vase continues to serve as a dark base for flowers that, for their part, rise towards clarity.

This white and this blue are those that the archangel extended to Mary

The couple that dominates these Lily paintings — a bright white, a dense blue — is nothing like a decorative accident. It is the duo of the Annunciation, repeated for centuries: the archangel offers a white lily to a woman draped in a blue cloak, and this blue was worth more than gold, since it was ground from a stone from very far away. The European eye has been trained for six hundred years to read these two colors together. When they return today in a simple bouquet placed on a table, the solemnity remains, even detached from its narrative.

This explains a feeling often experienced when viewing these artworks: they soothe without being gentle. A bouquet of peonies consoles, a bouquet of lilies imposes silence. The difference lies in this heritage, but also in the shape of the flower, upright, widely open, turned towards the viewer like a direct address. In an entrance hall or above a console, these bouquets create a zone of calm, slightly ceremonial: they hold the room rather than warm it, and they stand very well alone on their wall.

What wall should these Lily artworks be hung on for the petals to ignite?

It all depends on the darkness the artwork already brings: these Lily artworks carry their own night, since the backgrounds are browns, garnet or frankly black. On a pale wall, this dark mass cuts out a very clear rectangle and the white petals seem to ignite from within: this is the most striking result. On a dark wall, the background of the artwork blends with the partition and only the flowers remain, suspended in the darkness, which gives something more mysterious, almost floating. Both work; they simply don't tell the same story.

Garnet backgrounds and brown nights: where does the white brilliance of the Lily artworks come from?

Without these garnet and black backgrounds, the white lily would not exist.

Let's just say it: on a light background, these Lily artworks would not exist. The white petal is the clearest value available to a painter ; placed on a pale surface, it vanishes, it becomes a white hole in white. The deep browns, garnets and blacks of this collection are therefore not a matter of mood: they are the only surfaces against which a white can be shaped, show its bluish grays in the hollows and its frank light on the back edge of the petals.

This is the lesson of ancient still lifes, painted on reddish or dark backgrounds that were left to breathe all around the bouquet. Garnet, in particular, is never neutral : it is an extinguished red, complementary to the green of the stems, which vibrates the leaves without anyone realizing it. Once hung, a background like this behaves like an opening carved into the wall: the gaze goes inside instead of sliding over it, and the room seems to gain a few centimeters of depth on that side.

These Lily artworks paint the exact hour when the flower perfumes.

Evening often returns in these Lily artworks to the point where one can see more than a taste for calm atmospheres. The large white lilies in trumpet shape double their fragrance at dusk : the pale corolla, widely open, serves as a landmark for moths, and the scent rises suddenly at the beginning of the evening in a closed room. Painting a lily at dusk is therefore painting it at the moment when it acts the most, when it occupies an entire room without even being looked at.

This is evident in the way these artworks are lit. The light never comes from the front : it slides from the side, brushes the top of a corolla, leaves half the bouquet in a brown twilight. The still closed buds remain almost invisible, reduced to green spindles that are only distinguished when approaching. The painter does not seek to show everything: he shows what the end of the day reveals, and shadow does the rest of the work. This is what gives these bouquets their air of having been caught rather than posed.

Conversely, a few Lily artworks where the light shines through the petal

Not all of the lilies in this collection are nocturnal, and that's precisely what prevents the collection from becoming repetitive. Some shift to the early hours: a blue, low-lying light comes in from the side, the petals become almost translucent, the glass of the vase begins to shine instead of absorb. The lily remarkably supports this light because its flower is thin, waxy, and a ray passes through it from one side to the other instead of stopping at its surface.

For a wall, the difference is very concrete. The morning canvases bring freshness and complement a room that is already bright, a kitchen, a dining room facing east. Those of the evening, on the other hand, require a more sheltered corner, where they won't have to fight against a large window. Many people end up taking both and distributing them in different rooms: the same collection then gives two hours of the day to a single home, without ever repeating from one room to another.

The detail of the petals, or how to view a Lily Canvas up close

Where do these dark spots come from, scattered on the petals of the Lily Canvases?

It's the detail that surprises the most when approaching a rose or cream Lily canvas: the petals are dotted with small dark spots, sometimes tiny reliefs, like a rain of spots starting from the throat. There's nothing accidental about it. These speckles are nectar guides : they trace a path that the insect follows to the base of the flower, where the sugar is located. The flower bears its instructions printed on itself, and the painter copies them spot by spot.

These spotted lilies are not the same as the large, solid white lilies. They descend from species from Japan, arrived in Europe in the nineteenth century and then crossed to produce these pink and cream varieties with a dark throat. The collection thus seems to hesitate between two worlds: on one side a white and smooth flower, almost iconic, on the other a fleshy, speckled flower, frankly from elsewhere. The two are found in the same blue vases, and this proximity accounts for a good part of the pleasure one takes in the whole.

The stamens, which florists cut and which these canvases preserve

Look at the center of a Lily canvas: six long stamens emerge from the corolla, arched, loaded with a reddish powder, and a pistil even longer protrudes from them. In a real bouquet, these stamens are almost always removed upon purchase, because the pollen inevitably stains a tablecloth or a sleeve. Painters, on the other hand, always keep them. The reason is simple: this orange-red constitutes the only warm note in an image made of whites, blues and greens. Remove it, and the whole thing cools down abruptly.

This tiny spot of color plays a disproportionate role on a wall. It gives the eye a precise place to rest, it prevents the bouquet from being reduced to a pale mass when viewed from afar, and it subtly recalls the garnet or brown background, which stitches the image together. It is also what separates a painted flower from a photographed flower: the painter deliberately keeps what the florist removes, because he composes an image and not a bouquet intended to last eight days on a table.

The vertical, that's what the Lily Canvases impose on a wall

One thing strikes you as soon as you align these Lily canvases: everything rises. The stems are straight and stiff, the leaves cling along the stem like blades, the flowers open at the top, and a still-closed bud often extends the line a notch higher. No other cut flower stands like this. The consequence is very concrete : these images work in height, they lengthen a narrow wall, fit well between two doors, above a seat back or in a stairwell.

FAQ on lily paintings

Do the lilies in these paintings have anything to do with the fleur-de-lis of French heraldry?

Almost nothing, and it's visible to the naked eye. The royal emblem is a three-branched, flat, symmetrical motif that most specialists relate to a stylized marsh iris rather than a true lily. The flowers in these canvases are Lilium: six widely open star-shaped tepals, six prominent stamens, a deep throat and sometimes spotted. Nothing to do with a coat of arms. Those looking for a heraldic reference will be disappointed; those who love cut flowers will be delighted.

What does a bouquet of lilies bring that a bouquet of roses or peonies doesn't?

A direction. The rose and the peony form rounded masses, without orientation, which gently fill a frame. The lily, on the other hand, is an architecture: vertical stem, leaves in blades, open corolla pointing towards you. The image gains tension what it loses in roundness. Add the white, that milky and frank white that no rose reaches and which serves as a light source in a dark canvas. You choose these bouquets when you want presence rather than softness.

White lilies evoke funeral wreaths: aren't these paintings sad?

The concern is frequent in France, where the white lily remains associated with funeral arrangements. These paintings defuse it in two ways. First through the container: they are domestic vases, blue or glass, placed on a table, never wreaths. Then through the color: turquoise, speckled pink, garnet and warm creams draw the whole towards the intimate. What remains is calm and a certain solemnity, not sadness.