Vase of Flowers
XVII century. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
This work belongs to a series of five other paintings (P1054, P1055, P4042, P4093 and P5314) from the convent of San Felipe el Real, Madrid, from where they were transferred to the convent of La Trinidad. In their original context these vases must have been considered images of the natural world that inspired the viewers to praise of the Creator.
For their style and technique, this painting and its companions represent outstanding examples of De la Corte´s mature work. The bowls stand filled with dense bouquets, whose flowers occupy the pictorial field in the characteristic horror vacui manner of De la Corte´s paintings. The abundance, the variety and their wild vitality are also typical qualities of this artist´s works. Gabriel de la Corte followed the conventions of chiaroscuro, concentrating the light-coloured flowers in the centre of the composition as a chromatic draw for the viewer, relegating the darker tones to the periphery of the bouquet. However, the execution of these paintings is entirely his own. In all the paintings of the series, De la Corte used a relatively thick, open-weave canvas, which was his preferred medium. Despite the fact that the works have been lined in the 19th century, the vigorously worked pictorial surface that was characteristic of his style is still discernible. Thanks to his intuitive wet-painting technique, he conveys the impression of a wide range of tonalities and some of the colour mixtures are of considerable chromatic subtlety. While most of the flowers are modelled by brushstrokes dense with pigment, the petals of the tulips and roses are created by means of much finer, transparent glazes. With his usual confident, spontaneous and frank brushstrokes, De la Corte conveys in these paintings the exciting impression of the freshness of flowers
Flores españolas del Siglo de Oro: la pintura de flores en la España del siglo XVII, Madrid, Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado, 2002, p.142
