Conversation 1912

Henri Matisse painted "Conversation" with oils on canvas. It is a big blue wall, a claustrophobic domestic space, and the figures are like cut-outs, so flat, so stylized. I can imagine Matisse standing in front of the canvas, brush in hand, mixing blues, the pure color electric, almost vibrating. Maybe he stepped back, squinted, and thought about what it means to translate a moment, a relationship, into paint. He flattens the space, so the conversation isn’t about being close, but about distance, and how hard it is to connect. The vertical stripes of his pajama's mirror the tree trunk outside; it feels symbolic, I guess. Painters, we are all in conversation; through marks and colours, we ask what it is to be human and to make something from nothing.