The Bay of Nice 1918

Henri Matisse made ‘The Bay of Nice’ with oil paint, and you can almost feel him daubing at it. It looks like it was a struggle to get this scene down – a bay, some palm trees, and some buildings – and I'm thinking, Henri, I get it! There’s a gorgeous view of the Mediterranean Sea, and Matisse has used these loose brushstrokes. I can imagine him, squinting, trying to capture the light and the way it bounces off everything. He was probably looking at impressionists like Monet. I wonder if they had a conversation about this kind of stuff? Look at how he’s just slapped that yellow paint on the side there, thick and juicy. But it’s kind of arbitrary. He’s not trying to fool us into thinking we’re there. It’s like he's saying, ‘I'm making a painting.’ That's something I can certainly relate to. We’re all just trying to figure out how to see, how to feel, and how to put that onto a canvas.