Heroic Doodles

The bouquets in Dutch painting represent a mixture of seasonal varieties that cannot, in reality, coexist. The flowers that make up these impossible bouquets are depicted at the height of their bloom, signifying grandeur alongside imminent decay. Though they epitomize the golden age of Dutch painting, 17th-century flower paintings belong to a genre traditionally placed at the bottom of the hierarchy of painting. In Heroic Doodles, Laufer takes up this subject matter, which to this day is associated with the realm of the domestic and undemanding.