Peter Graham
The rose is such a classic form; with its wonderful shape it is a perfect vision of natural beauty. The symbolic connotations of the rose bring so many feelings and moods: the purity of the white rose, the joy of the yellow rose and the passion of the red rose. I associate the rose with protection and compassion, and I hope my love of roses comes through in my painting. The chance to paint the light as it reflects on the petal, the fragility of the surface, the rich foliage, the varied and exciting range of shapes and textures are all great for the painter!
Roses were a favourite subject of the French Impressionists, notably Édouard Manet, who transformed paint into roses with his deft and lively brushwork. Van Gogh said of Manet’s still-life roses ‘as much a flower as anything could be and yet painted in perfectly solid impasto’. Fantin-Latour painted roses all his life and even had a rose named after him.