The Lute 1943

Curator: Looking at Henri Matisse’s “The Lute,” painted in 1943 using oil on canvas, one is immediately struck by its vibrant use of colour. Editor: Absolutely. The fiery reds combined with those cool greens create such a striking visual tension. I’m also drawn to the flatness of the picture plane. It’s so characteristic of Matisse. Curator: He’s really playing with perspective here, isn’t he? Flattening space and using pattern as texture and as a defining force. Let's not forget the political context; this piece was painted during the Nazi occupation of France. There's something quietly radical in its celebration of beauty and domesticity amid such turmoil. Do you see the lute player as an intentional subversion of the dominant narrative? Editor: That’s a really interesting angle. I am wondering whether the act of painting, the concentration of shape and shade, might function as an escape in a similar way to which she's escaping by playing the lute? The Fauvist use of arbitrary colours is significant; in this light, this bold use of colour becomes a sort of protest in and of itself. This defiance, it seems to me, is quite gendered; note the compositional weight placed on the lute player, a figure seemingly self-contained and finding strength through artistic expression within the restrictive environment. Curator: Indeed, that self-containment is powerfully rendered. The patterned dress, the elaborately decorated background...these elements contribute to the reading you outline so well. Her agency is perhaps in curating a visually stimulating domestic sphere at a moment when so much felt unstable. And do we see that reflected, dare I ask, in the politics of museum spaces? The canvas calls us to remember that art, even still life and intimate scenes such as this one, have the power to rewrite social roles, to resist any hegemonic structure. Editor: This really calls me to appreciate Matisse's understanding of the communicative capacity of art in difficult circumstances. This wasn't just escapism. Thank you. Curator: The pleasure was all mine; a fascinating encounter indeed.