Paul Gauguin - Still Life with Sunflowers on an armchair 1901. The face in the window also has much in common with the blank features of Buddha.

Paul Gauguin - Still Life with Sunflowers on an armchair 1901

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From Hermitage, St. Petersburg:
In 1901, when this painting was produced, Gauguin was still living in Tahiti and nearing the end of his life. Yet the subject dates back to the time of his friendship with van Gogh, in whose work the sunflower motif, a symbol of the sun, occupied a special place. In 1888, both artists worked together at Arles in Provence, and van Gogh painted a number of now famous still lives with sunflowers. Gauguin took to growing these flowers in Oceania from seeds sent specially from France. The artist's fantasy turns reality into mystery, the eye which takes shape in the centre of the flower in the background creating a mystical mood, recalling the "all-seeing eye" which is often found in Christian churches. The face in the window also has much in common with the blank features of Buddha. Thus the exotic land of Oceania was combined with nostalgic reminiscences of the Europe the artist had left behind.

Unlike his Impressionist friends, Degas was an essentially urban painter, who
liked to paint the enclosed spaces of stage shows, leisure activities and
pleasure spots.In a cafe, a fashionable meeting place, a man and a woman,
although sitting side-by-side, are locked in silent isolation - art-Degas.com

The portrait of Madame Cézanne in a yellow armchair is as simple in
appearance as it is monumental. The subject’s individuality seems to
have been less important to Cézanne than his construction of the figure
from coloured forms of an almost stereometric nature - art-Cezanne.com

art-Gauguin.com

Paul Gauguin 1848-1903