Barrio Escalante, San José

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Flores, by Teodorico Quirós. Far from the traditional delicacy usually associated with floral subjects, this image asserts itself through an aggressive architecture of angles and tension.

Teodorico Quirós

FloresInquire about availability

Year
1957
Technique
Oil/Canvas
Dimensions
58 × 81 cm
Status
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Palette
burnt orange, warm ochre, slate gray, sage green, bone white
Brushwork
Angular and faceted planes delimited by visible linear contours and fluid yet firm impasto.

Curatorial analysis

Far from the traditional delicacy usually associated with floral subjects, this image asserts itself through an aggressive architecture of angles and tension. Plant life here neither rests nor wilts; it bends, projects, and endures with the firmness of a carved structure. The fiery orange corollas, with petals folded like articulated limbs or bent plates, dominate the foreground with a rough vitality that refuses any decorative concession.

The pictorial space dispenses with naturalistic atmosphere, resolving instead into an almost geological volumetry. Behind the burning calyxes, the leaves rise in severe spear-like tips of steel, ashen, and neutral ocher tones, constructing a background of triangular facets that emphasize the canvas's upward rhythm. A constant tension exists between the heat of the oranges and the coldness of the surrounding grays, tempered only by pale pistils that hold a muted, mineral green.

The brushwork delineates each volume with deliberate geometry, revealing the constructive framework of every plane. Pigment is applied in controlled, lean layers, allowing the drawing lines to define the fractures of light. Rather than suggesting the soft velvet of a garden blossom, the painted surface evokes the armor of arid or upland tropical flora, where survival demands thorns, tough fibers, and shielded stems.

This rigorous stylization turns a botanical study into a forceful formal statement. The tight framing presses the elements against the canvas edges, eliminating any horizon line to ensnare the viewer in a tangle of sharp tips, hard-edged shadows, and metallic glints. The plant ceases to be a passive motif and transforms into a living, formidable apparatus that confronts the eye.

Flores

More works by Teodorico Quirós

11 works

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