Gustave Greux (aka Gustave Marie Greux) (1838–1919) “Fleurs de la Prairie” [Flowers from the Prairie], 1882, published in “L'Art, revue hebdomadaire illustrée”, 1882, printed by François Liénard.

Etching on fine laid paper

Size: (sheet) 32 x 24.8 cm; (plate) 27.7 x 21.5 cm; (image) 21.5 x 17.2 cm

Inscribed above image (centre) “Salon de 1882”; below the image (left) “L'Art”; (centre) “Gustave Greux, pinx. & sc. / FLEURS DE LA PRAIRIE.”; (right) F. Liénard Imp. Paris.” IFF 27

The British Museum offers the following description of this print: “Wildflowers, including daisies and cornflowers” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3369975&partId=1&searchText=greux&page=1).

Condition: richly inked and well-printed impression on fine laid paper with margins and in excellent condition.

I am selling this original etching by Greux for a total cost of AU$68 (currently US$49.52/EUR43.88/GBP34.31 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this etching executed by a major artist of the Salons between 1859 and 1882, please contact me at oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com and I will email you a PayPal invoice.

This print has been sold

Although one should be hesitant to propose that images created by men are different to images created by women, nevertheless, I suspect that the idea is true. Moreover, this print captures the way men look at flowers.

To explain what I mean I must first venture out on a metaphorical limb and suggest that men are conditioned to see what is in directly in front of them without really seeing a wider field of view. This leaning to a tunnel-like vision of the world is helpful when hunting or overtaking every car in front of them, but this narrow vision is unhelpful when trying to find things in the fridge—and I can speak with experience about this difficulty.

Women, on the other hand, have a broader field of view in terms of what is around them. This leaning to peripheral vision is helpful for seeing what the children are doing and to avoid side-on collisions with other cars. (Interestingly, statistics from “somewhere” show that men have more side-on collisions than women and women have more head-on collisions than men.)

The reason that I related the above “findings” is that this image of flowers matches a man’s vision of such an arrangement. For instance, note how the focus is “tunnelled” to the very centre of the bunch while the peripheral edges are rendered out of focus. Note also that the central area is not all in focus. Greux narrows down the point of focus to a very special point of interest: a sharp lanceolate-shaped leaf with all its inherent manly associations.