Paul Gauguin's 'Still Life with Mandolin', 1885; featuring a remake by C.T. Rasmuss.

Opening statement from one of my art-books on Paul Gauguin:

"Gauguin has reworked the traditional still life and brought it up to date.  He has retained a number of conventional ingredients-the rose...however he's not studied the different textures of the objects-the peonies are solid as the wood...The picture on the wall belonged to Gauguin(painted by his artist friend, Armand Guillaumin), similar to a view out of a window as in his own, 'Vase of Flowers', 1881."

                                          Still Life with Mandolin, Paul Gauguin; oil (1885).

The following is my interpretation/Remake of the above accompanying statement/composition:

                       Remake of Gauguin's 'Still Life with Mandolin' (Lily); C.T. Rasmuss (CHAD), oil (2013). 

I see now after looking at the table, that I have a larger angle sloping downward from the left, changing the space and composition via vanishing line.  Where the vase sets, this vanishing line is briefly interrupted, here I'm reminded of Cezanne's still life's; where many of his lines were adjusted, sacrificed for the overall feeling of the work, which played a big role in Gauguin's work(and later the Modernists)..

From the beginning I set out to fill a space similar to Gauguin's original, which included color.  I planned on leaving out the Mandolin & possibly the China bowl(another reference to Cezanne); due to my unfamiliarity with such iconic objects, as I've never had a use or interacted with either one.  Once everything was in place, including place-mat(pun intended) & vase, I then started with the darkest leaves(undergrowth) continuing to use a brush, experimenting with technique; then I tried the peonies, but being unfamiliar with them up close, I had trouble to get them to work for me.  

Solution:

I turned my attention to the opening statement above(from my art-book)...I said to myself: "This is not me" and reached for the palette knife, from then on I never left my array of knifes, end result:

Thinly brush on 1st layer over entire canvas, brush on texture and objects as far as the brushes will take you; when all else fails: "Pick up the palette knives..and don't look back"!  In other words, study all you can and when you like something, don't copy it, but "make it your own", same as Gauguin had done over 100 years ago; hence my Lily instead of his Mandolin, I'm very familiar with Lilies:)