oh boy well these flowers are certainly different have you ever seen such a depressing bunch think for a moment about the paintings of beautiful blooms you may have seen before close your eyes for a second do you remember the bright colors and the way the flowers were perfectly arranged in their vase light was probably streaming through a window somewhere wasn't it I bet you could even see some of the brushstrokes on the flower petals and the smell your memory tells you they probably smelled sweet so sweet like rows and rows of cotton candy okay open your eyes that's actually the point of this work it's poking fun at traditional still life paintings of pretty roses and sunflowers black flowers is an early work by Roy Lichtenstein a very famous artist known for his color rich pop art paintings inspired by comic book panels and you can see his most famous technique being developed in this work in the background are lots of small hand-painted spots those are called bhende dots and they mimic the technique used in printing newspapers as Lichtenstein grew more famous so did the dots in his paintings and dots the truth