View of Notre Dame 1914

Henri Matisse made this painting, View of Notre Dame, with oil on canvas. It’s a mostly blue scene, but not a still blue; it’s a very active blue, with brushstrokes going every which way, and darker blues scratched into it. Then a big bright green splotch. There are these big black lines that act as architecture, or at least give you a basic sense of perspective. You can tell he was working very fast, not fussing over getting the lines perfect, or the color just right. The building is roughly squared-off, but it’s all about feeling. He’s not trying to copy the real thing but capture what it feels like. Matisse went back to this subject, but his later paintings look really different. This one reminds me a little of Milton Avery, who also had that simplified, poetic, color-driven way of seeing. It’s not about the exact object but about the feeling it gives you. In the end, that’s the most important thing.