Still life with Waratahs by Lily Fran

Still life with Waratahs

The artwork ‘Still life with Waratahs’ is by Margret Preston who is from Australia and from the modernism movement. The painting its self is 190cm x 89.5cm and is an oil on canvas.

This artwork is a painting that has a large vibrant vase, in the vase is a large selection of big, red waratahs with vivacious leaves on an off white/cream sheet. The artwork also features large red detailed waratahs with green leaves spilling out behind them. The flowers are in a brown and green glossy vase. Also on the base of the painting there are a few leaves and flower that litter the base to give the white more color. The flowers and vase take up most of the room in the painting, and the axis of the artwork is mostly vertical. The lines are mostly all curved with some sharp edges to contradict and the tone is quite light. The sheet in the background is textured, the flowers and leaves look quite real. The flowers are all very balanced and similar but not symmetrical and repeated.

Red and green are used mostly in the flowers themselves and white/cream colors in the background. The vase is much smaller in comparison to the burst of flowers above it. There is a window behind the flowers letting light into the picture. The vase also appears to be sitting on a stand with a rumpled sheet over it.

This artwork is about having time to appreciate seemingly unimportant things that are beautiful. This painting is different because it has only one type of flower and leaf but each individual flower/leaf is different in size and/or textures.

The idea of the painting is that people need to appreciate smaller, less significant things. This is expressed by simply having a vase and flowers not any people or other things blocking the view of the flowers and it’s only decorated by texture. This is to draw your attention to the subject of the painting- the flowers. Waratahs were chosen because they are quite large and come in many different colors and also native to Australia, which is where the artist- Margret Preston is from. The window in the background symbolizes light on top of the flowers to help them prosper and grow.

I like this artwork because it is very well done and has a good message. This artwork should be put in a museum because more people need to see and appreciate this artwork.