Focus on this artwork and discuss the Critical assessment.
In Zubans' major study of Phillips Fox's work the painting is described as "exquisite" and "enchanting". The Senior Curator of Australian Art at the Gallery described Nasturtiums as "the most significant in a series of women-in-garden paintings which Phillips Fox created over 1911–12"The dappled light and decorative approach seen in the painting are characteristic of Fox's work, although it is less warm than other similar Fox paintings, such as Sur le Balcon or The Green Parasol. The uncharacteristic "dampening down of atmosphere and light" has been attributed to the weather in Paris at the time – which according to Fox's friend Rupert Bunny was very cold and wet.Japanese print design influenced Fox during the period this painting was done and its arrangement of colours is noted as an effect of those influences. "Arrangements" of colour had become important aesthetic components of paintings. Fox would have been aware of the most famous "arrangement" – Whistler's Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1 (known as Whistler's Mother) – which had been painted in 1871 and acquired by a Parisian museum in 1891. Fox's arrangement of the mauve and black colours (seen again in On the Balcony), has been compared to the way "a still-life painter would arrange the objects of his composition, for greatest formal effect". Various elements of the painting, including "the lack of perspective" which gives "an impression of a flat space, invaded by motifs: the leaves on the trellis, the red touches provided by the flowers, the white dots on the dress, the weaving on the wicker chair" are described as "all corresponding to a very pleasing Japanese aesthetics which recalls Vuillard.
Vuillard Rupert Bunny Japanese print design trellis Whistler's Mother On the Balcony mauve The Green Parasol Parisian museum