Five Fruits & Double-Petaled Lilies

Lilies are my favorite flowers. Their scent makes me feel refreshed from the inside out, and I love looking at them. But they are a robust kind of beauty – bold, even. If not painted carefully, they can easily lose their grace. That’s why I thought… maybe I shouldn’t paint them at all, as if not wanting to disrupt their sacred muse-like presence. A single-petaled lily is already challenging to capture delicately, and a double-petaled one? Even more so, especially in realism.

But when they were overflowing on my table, next to those equally ripe fruits, I couldn’t resist. So I painted them – why not?

As I neared the end of this painting, I realized something. At first, I painted them as they were. But then, reality had its say – the original flowers had to be eaten (the fruits, at least) or they would rot. And that’s when Frida Kahlo’s words hit me: “I paint flowers so they will not die.” True enough, by the time I finished painting, they had already withered.

But whether it’s Frida’s flowers or anyone else’s, no matter how long they are preserved in art, they will fade one day, against the vastness of time. So yes, let’s preserve beauty, but let’s not cling to it. If we already know it will fade, why dwell on it? Why not just live fully in the immortal moment of looking at it, of painting it? Because that is the moment when nothing and no one can take it away from us. That is when it is truly eternal. Right?

Wishing everyone a vibrant new month, just like this painting.