default

Door de Fiori oscuri bloeit een vloed van wijn
of is het het bloed van donkere bloemen?

Rood van rozen

Le sang sens des fleurs obscurs        
Bloedend
Fiori oscuri

Le sens de fleur obscur

Bloed van donkere bloemen

Jef Verheyen, quote from his notes, 1977

Fiori Oscuri. In Italian that means ‘dark flowers’.

The title reveals that we are looking at a floral

still life. This is no accurate depiction of dark

red roses, but instead just the idea of them, the

colour. The Renaissance frame is like a window.

A window on an infinite field of colour. Flowers

– and by extension our own existence – are

ephemeral. In his notes Verheyen wrote that in

this work ‘the dark flowers are as dark as blood.

The blood of dark flowers.’