Bouquet d’aigrettes blanches

Two sprays of pale plumes spread out on either side of a stemmed glass vase placed at the centre of the table. Behind it, a pink fabric gathers in deep folds; a few detached plumes rest in the foreground. The almost black-brown background sets off the bouquet’s silky whiteness. Aimé Barraud gives the objects arranged before him the meticulous attention characteristic of his still lifes. Here, the geometry of the glass and the scattered stems hold order and movement together. The painting bears the signature “.aimé.barraud.” at the lower left. The Musée des beaux-arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds holds L’Estampe japonaise, another oil on canvas by Barraud in which objects from the studio take centre stage. Without reprising its subject, this bouquet attests to the same interest in the arrangement of things, including the space left around them. Cream and white touches follow the movement of the plumes, while fine dark lines trace their stems. The denser mass of the fabric, modelled with pink and brown passages, answers this light handling. Narrow highlights define the foot of the glass, whose transparency reveals the cluster of stems. This oil on canvas measures 50 × 60 cm excluding the frame. On the reverse, the light-coloured canvas is stretched over a wooden stretcher. The frame brings the overall dimensions to 65 × 76 cm. Its broad profile in a golden hue, adorned with vegetal reliefs, extends the warmth of the fabric without competing with the pale plumes. Between the precision of the stems and the apparent freedom of the plumes, the painting retains the balance of a motionless scene crossed by a breath of air.