Henri Jean Guillemin Martin

This quiet painter stuck to a simple routine: every morning he set up in the same corner of his Paris studio, sunlight pooling on the same worn Oriental rug, and painted the same three potted ferns. He made over 200 fern studies in his lifetime, each one just a little different in light and shadow. A fern in his hands could look like lace or like weathered stone; you can still see the streak of blue in Fern Study No. 14 at the Musée d'Orsay if you stand close enough.