Blue Interior 1947

Henri Matisse made this painting, *Blue Interior*, and you can really feel him working through it. The whole scene is bathed in this cool blue, but it's the way he lets the other colors peek through – the oranges, greens, and browns – that makes it so alive. It's like he's inviting the light into the room. Look at the little blue and white pot on the table. See how he's captured the light bouncing off it with these simple, bold strokes? He's not trying to fool you into thinking it's real, but he's making it *more* real somehow. That little pot feels like a whole world in itself. It reminds me of Bonnard, another painter who loved to paint the everyday stuff, to capture the feeling of being alive. There's a conversation happening here, a back and forth between what's real and what's imagined, between seeing and feeling. Matisse isn't trying to give us answers; he's inviting us to join the conversation, to get lost in the looking.